One of the first larger-equipment purchases our school made for our Maker curriculum was a vinyl cutter and heat press.  A vinyl cutter is similar to a large format printer or plotter.  However, instead of printing on paper, it cuts images and characters into thin colored vinyl dispensed from wide rolls of the material.  The most commonly used vinyl rolls are either vinyl with sticky backing for self-adhesive images and letters, or heat-transfer vinyl for creating designs to be permanently heat-pressed onto fabric.   A heat press can be thought of as an industrial-style clamshell iron for fabric.  It first presses wrinkles out of fabric (think t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc.), and is then used to permanently transfer heat-transfer vinyl images onto fabric.

 

The reason we invested in the vinyl cutter and heat press was twofold:

 

            1.) It allowed us to provide a practical application for the 2D CAD and graphic software skills we want      our students to acquire;

            2.) It has the potential to create projects that can enhance school spirit, while also providing a revenue stream to fund other Maker curriculum investments and student leadership projects.

 

In our Maker Enrichment class students quickly learned how to design graphics in Inkscape and render them for 2D printing.  Some students chose to focus on making custom stickers for binders and cell phone cases, while others chose to focus on personalized t-shirt graphics.  By the end of the trimester everyone was able to create projects of their own choosing. 

 

An added bonus is we now have 7th graders moving up to 8th grade next year who know the entire process.   They will be the mentors to 7th and 8th grade students (as well as teachers) next year to bring vinyl cutting projects to the rest of the school community.  Our leadership students plan to sell stickers and t-shirts as fundraising (and school spirit raising) items next year.  We also hope to produce all of our sports team t-shirts and sweatshirts in-house, allowing the teams to customize their items at reduced cost.  We also plan to produce signs and banners promoting our parent-group activities at greatly reduced cost than they currently pay to outside printers.  We expect to have recouped the cost of the entire vinyl cutter investment (roughly $600, including heat press and 16 large rolls of vinyl) by the middle of next year.  We have enough vinyl to create projects for at least the next year or two.  The vinyl reallly goes a long way!