Hello and welcome

Fabrication and Analysis of 3D Puzzles is a new University Studies UNST 300 course held in the JMU 3SPACE 3D printing classroom that focuses on critical thinking, independent research, and hands-on design thinking.

Over the course of the semester we’ll explore a wide variety of 3D puzzles, and even construct new ones!

Here are a few examples of what we mean by “3D puzzles”: a Cube puzzle quartet by mathgrrl, Tetrahedron screw-puzzle by George Hart and printed by J3J3, and moon/star ambiguous cylinder by Kokichi Sugihara.

Class resources

The website you are at right now will be the primary source of information for our class, so save this link. You can find all class assignments, blog posts, and resources along the top menu bar. As the course progresses, you and the other students in the class will submit your work as public blog posts on this website. The sidebar at the left has links to our key online tools, as well as filters for viewing future blog posts by project category.

We will be using Canvas for assignment submission, peer review, and grades. If you need to contact me please send me an email with “UNST 300E” as part of the subject line.

The nature of this course

Our explorations of problem solving and iteration in this course will be supported by 3D printing and design in the JMU 3SPACE Classroom. This will be a highly digital course and we will be using the internet as our primary textbook. We will use both online and locally installed 3D design software and coding programs, and make use of online collaboration and publication tools. The main objective of this class is to put you in a hands-on environment where you can apply modern problem solving approaches such as design thinking, iteration, project management, and independent learning.

Required materials

There is no required textbook for this course. Material needs for most projects will be covered by 3SPACE and Library supplies. For larger or bulk projects, or ones requiring specialty materials, you may need to acquire or purchase additional supplies.