Exploring Computational Thinking Skills in 3D Printing: A Data Analysis of an Online Makerspace
Christos Chytas, Alexandros Tsilingiris, Ira Diethelm · 2019
Nowadays, the ability to code is becoming increasingly important in industry and is often mentioned as a crucial skill for future employment. In maker culture, the ability to program along with other technical skills often exceeds this limitation and also includes fun activities through personally fabricated projects. In this paper, we examine computational design projects that are intended to be 3D printed and could potentially introduce coding learning actions. To find computationally rich designs that are appealing to learners, we conducted data analysis on an online makerspace which exploits computational design tools for personal fabrication. We found the most liked designs of the online makerspace and examined which of them included programming features (iterations, conditional statements and functions/modules) and could foster computational thinking elements such as abstract and algorithmic thinking, pattern recognition, and decomposition. The most liked category of designs was Figures (of animals and popular animation characters among other things) which surprisingly often also included programming features. We discuss the implications of our research for technologists, academics and teachers who wish to include 3D modeling and printing in coding learning activities.