We spoke to Magic Makers, a series of French based education programs aimed at teaching children how to use interactive software and tech, about their recent experience with 3D artwork and storytelling. They talked about how children reacted to the tools and how they showcased their work with Sketchfab.
Last week at Magic Makers, kids had the incredible opportunity to build their stories in 3D with Sketchfab.
While looking for ways to enhance our 3D Design and printing curriculum, we thought creating a whole story around a 3D world would be a great addition to 3D modeling and printing. So we decided to give it a try with Sketchfab and its awesome “annotations” feature, which enable to set viewpoints and comments on a design. It was a huge success!
Here is a little detail on how we proceeded to build this creative activity with the kids.
First of all, we showed kids examples of 3D Stories available on Sketchfab, like this great Star Wars fight here:
Then we asked them to think about their own stories. Where is it taking place? Are there any characters? What happens?
After that we split the activities to build in 3D each part of the stories.
The first thing they built was their “map” and the surroundings such as trees, roads, etc. with the fantastic 3D Slash app. Once built, they used 3D Slash “calk” and color features to add textures to their world.
Then they switch apps to try Sculpt, an amazing app from Autodesk, which enables to create figurines and vehicles in a “sculpting” mode with a tablet. Kids could then build their own figurine or “monster”, or modify examples such as dragons!
During the next session, it was time to gather both 3D files on 3D Slash and do some fine tuning before uploading to Sketchfab. Once uploaded to Sketchfab, kids had a great time customizing their main view with all the backgrounds and visual effects available on the viewer. Most of them loved the “space like” backgrounds and effects.
Then it was time to bring their stories to life by adding annotations to their files. Here are some examples of the amazing stories that they built. Sorry to the non-French speakers as the kids wrote in French.
Galeon Story by Enzo :
The Tau world by Luc :
The Extraterrestrian Attack by Alex :
https://sketchfab.com/models/c9c9e6bf76004a5891d0ff250e9f1b03
The Wonder World by Adrien :
Watermelon City by Ulysse :
https://sketchfab.com/models/5102d125473e4d11b5f260d7b1557a42
Kids had a lot of fun creating their story – which was also a good way to learn some 3D modeling skills with various apps!
Ending Note
In the last hours, we thought it would be cool to print some parts of the stories or the figurines made with Sculpt and paint them. If you have printers available and some painting equipment, it’s a really fun way to introduce kids to 3D printing.
About the author
Seori Sachs
Community Person!
