3-5
1 hour
Arithmetic Design & Technology Engineering General
NGSS Science & Engineering Practices
Reflection Active listening
3…2…1….Blastoff! In this activity, students will explore space by building their own Illuminated Solar System using the Glowforge App’s Trace and Print tool.
Theme
Thematic Questions
Standards:
NGSS Science & Engineering Practices
Get Ready:
Production Time:
Section 1 – Create:
Import each group’s planet token into the Glowforge App as individual drawings. Place the paper containing the drawings of the sun or planet on the Glowforge print bed and open the Glowforge App.
Click the Import Artwork button in the Glowforge App and select Trace to select the Glowforge Trace Tool. When importing each image with the Trace tool, scan the image but do not add cut lines.
It is important to be able to position each image independently, so you must repeat the scan process once for each planet image. In each scan, be sure to crop the area to be scanned closely, so that it only contains the student drawing.
After each image is scanned, place it anywhere convenient in the Glowforge App. It will need to be processed further before it is moved to its final position.
Be sure that the print settings for the drawings are all set to Engrave.
Once all the images are imported, remove the paper from the Glowforge, and place a sheet of Proofgrade Medium Clear Acrylic on the bed. Click the Import Artwork button and select Upload to import the SolarSystemPlanets.svg file. This file contains outlines for the eight planets and the sun.
In the Glowforge App, select the Cut setting for the outlines.
Drag the image of the sun into the largest of the cut outlines. Scale the image of the drawing down until it fits entirely inside the outline by clicking on the small circle at the image corner and dragging it towards the center. Move the image so that it is centered within the circular portion of the cut outline.
Follow the same process to place the images of the eight planets inside the smaller cut outlines. Decide with the students whether they’d like the planet images to fill the full space of the outlines to make them more easily visible, or whether they’d like to scale down the size of some of the planet drawings to give an idea of their relative sizes. Both methods work great for the Illuminated Solar System. Once they’ve settled on the way they’d like their planets to look, scale the images appropriately and drag each into its own cut outline.
Note: do not change the size of the cut outlines for the planet shapes.
Before printing, double check that all of the uploaded images will print with the Engrave setting and outlines will print with the Cut setting.
Section 2 - Use:
Reflection Questions:
Pro Tips:
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