Case Study: STARBASE Minnesota achieves higher student engagement and hands-on rocket design skills with Stratasys Dimension 3D Printing

STARBASE and Dimension Rocket Elementary Students Design Skills to New Heights

STARBASE Minnesota, a non-profit STEM education program serving nearly 4,000 students annually (up to 115 per week) from more than 30 inner-city schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, needed a way to make science and math feel authentic and exciting for grade-school students. To give students a real-world engineering experience during its five-day, 20-hour mission-to-Mars curriculum, STARBASE Minnesota partnered with Stratasys and integrated the Dimension 3D Printer into classroom activities.

Stratasys’ Dimension 3D Printer let students turn CAD designs for rocket fins into physical parts, test them in wind tunnels and on actual launches, and analyze flight data with Google Earth—bringing design, testing and iteration to life. The Stratasys solution boosted student and instructor engagement, enabled instructors to create instructional models and replacement parts, and reinforced engineering concepts across the program that reaches thousands of students each year.

STARBASE Minnesota

Christina Johnson

Instructor