Formlabs’ Innovate & Educate Challenge invited educators across the country to develop and share lesson plans that encourage creative thinking and hands-on learning through 3D printing. Thanks to those who submitted, we’re able to share free resources with a wider learning community dedicated to inspiring students with rich, immersive experiences.

Photogrammetry with Drones for 3D Printing pairs the use of drones with image
processing software to 3D print scaled buildings and scenes.

In this lesson plan, submitted by DePaul University, students learn about applicable fields for 3D scanning and get to try it for themselves, preparing equipment, setting up an autopilot route, and launching their own customized drone image capture mission.

Objectives include:

• Learn about several approaches to modeling 3D objects
  
• Learn how to generate an automatic flight path for a drone
  
• Learn how to convert an image collection to a 3D printable file through photogrammetry and stitching
  
• Discover the impact of multi-layer errors on model precision