META24 WORKFORCE LAB · GRADED TO THE CORE · PROJECT-BASED · A COURSE IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN & MANUFACTURING · MIDDLE SCHOOL · UPPER SCHOOL · GRADE 6–12 · 0.25 CREDIT · META24 LAB COMPETENCIES
Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing)
The Course · Additive · in The Fab Shop · Industrial & 3D
6 weeks of The Fab Shop · Industrial & 3D: The Technologies — “3D Printing” Is Six Things · The Machine Tiers — What Money Buys · Materials — Every Filament and What It’s For · The Engineering — Calibration · Design for Additive (DfAM) + Post-Processing …
The weeks are the course’s own, read from the lab; the catalog pads the last weeks with the capstone and the floor so the course fills a whole term.
THE MIX · HOW MUCH OF EACH CORE SUBJECT THIS COURSE CARRIES · IN ORDER
READING & WRITINGMATHCODING & AITECHNOLOGY & TRADESSCIENCEART & DESIGNHISTORY, GEOGRAPHY & HUMANITIESBUSINESS & ENTERPRISE
The squares are a picture of a course — how much of each core subject its own rooms carry, read from the rooms’ text — never a score of a student. Every course in a lab is graded to the core across the board; the squares say which columns it feeds most.
WHAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO
- “3D printing” isn’t one thing — it’s at least six completely different technologies, each with its own strengths, costs, and failures.
- The same technology (FDM, say) exists from a $200 home printer to a $200,000 industrial one — and the difference isn’t “better,” it’s specific: repeatability, tolerance, material range, reliability, and certified…
- A 3D printer is only as good as the material in it, and each filament is a real engineering trade-off
- The week that separates operators from engineers — pure engineering: measuring, math, and empirical science on a real machine
AT A GLANCE · 9 WEEKS
Q1 The Technologies — “3D Printing” Is Six Things → The floor — The assignments · weeks 1–9
ALSO IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN & MANUFACTURING · THE FAB SHOP · INDUSTRIAL & 3D
A quarter
9 WEEKS · ONE QUARTERQuarter 1 · The Technologies — “3D Printing” Is Six Things → The floor
WEEKS 1–9 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 1The Technologies — “3D Printing” Is Six ThingsTHE COURSE · ADDITIVE
“3D printing” isn’t one thing — it’s at least six completely different technologies, each with its own strengths, costs, and failures.
WK 2The Machine Tiers — What Money Buys
The same technology (FDM, say) exists from a $200 home printer to a $200,000 industrial one — and the difference isn’t “better,” it’s specific: repeatability, tolerance, material range, reliability, and certified…
WK 3Materials — Every Filament and What It’s For
A 3D printer is only as good as the material in it, and each filament is a real engineering trade-off. PLA is easy but softens in a hot car; PETG is the real-parts default; carbon-fiber is stiff but destroys a brass…
WK 4The Engineering — Calibration
The week that separates operators from engineers — pure engineering: measuring, math, and empirical science on a real machine. A calibrated printer prints to spec; an uncalibrated one prints garbage.
WK 5Design for Additive (DfAM) + Post-Processing
Designing FOR 3D printing is different — you design around orientation, supports, and the process’s real tolerances.
WK 6Applications at Scale + the Break-Even
Where 3D printing actually earns its keep — from the everyday jigs and fixtures that quietly run every factory, to end-use production parts, to the printed housings for the electronics you’ll build in Track 4.
WK 7–9The floor
The floor: the work is done in the room, logged in the room, kept in My Work.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The assignments · weeks 1–9
The question. What does The Course ask you to be able to do by week 6?
The make. Every week's assignment and the quiz as practice: The Technologies — “3D Printing” Is Six Things · The Machine Tiers — What Money Buys · Materials — Every Filament and What It’s For · The Engineering — Calibration …
The evidence. Handed in through The Course inside The Fab Shop · Industrial & 3D, kept in My Work; the Report reads it from there.
A course is a quarter, a semester or a year — nine, eighteen or thirty-six weeks — a project a quarter. Offered as the year, a semester or a quarter, it is the same course seen through a window. A lab is a family: its year, each of its tracks as a course, and its rooms. The evidence is what a student hands in through the room; the Report reads it from there. Nothing in the catalog is a grade.
THE PASS · THIS COURSE AND EVERY OTHER ONE
One pass includes Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) and every course in the catalog. Pick a pass, or enter a school code; checkout stays on this page.