This is My Kind of Teacher!

I posted a review on Amazon for the Matter and Form 3D scanner and decided to see what others had to say about it. I was extremely pleased by one review in particular.  What struck me was not the high marks in the review. It was why this particular teacher wanted a scanner in the first place!  And, how they have expanded their vision to include other teachers.

I have no idea who this teacher is or where they teach.  But, whoever they are.. they have my undying respect!  They "Get it!"  I hope, some day, to get to know them personally.

H.S.A

March 25, 2019

First off, I want to say I love this scanner. As a social studies teacher, I’ve been working to integrate my curriculum with STEAM (as opposed to STEM) concepts, and I wanted a tool that would help students maximize cross-disciplinary learning. For example, if I’m teaching about Roman Empire architecture, instead of having kids throw a poster together, or build an arch bridge out of balsa wood, I can use this scanner to get them involved with a real tech-tool (that’s actually used by Industrial Designers and engineers) which they can use in conjunction with a 3D printer (and/or, as I found out, with Photoshop). That way we can bring history into the science room, and vice-versa. (I can also share this scanner with the art teacher, science teacher, and anyone else who can find an application to maximize cross-departmental collaboration.)

Second – I do want to note that it takes a little practice to get down a good method for scanning. Once you get the concepts, tips and tricks down (how to properly set the laser for good geometry capture, how to clean and combine scans, etc), it’s easy to get great results. Even though that stuff is in the manual, Matter & Form offers live tutorials (I’ve never encountered another company that does this) which is perfect for people like me who aren’t big “user manual guys”. Getting personally walked through a couple things was a big help. (I highly encourage M&F to pop up a couple videos on the nuances.)

So, all in all, it’s a great piece of equipment, and has really helped bring other disciplines into my classroom. Students LOVE working with it, and I get to bring my pedagogy into the 21st century. Thanks, M&F!