real educational value for schools to acquire Makerbots
Several folks at the 3rd Ward Make-a-Thon were teachers interested in what a 3D printer could do for them. Although I loves me my Super Stock Thing-O-Matic, I have a hard time recommending it in an educational setting, particularly in the lower grades.
The problem is that it's not really a 3D printer. It's a continuing education project in electronic / mechanical / robotic design, construction, maintenance, and tweaking… and a 3D printer. I doubt that a teacher, even a highly motivated one, will have the continuing spare time and dedication to keeping a DIY 3D printer running.
In principle, you could have a support staff maintain the thing, but then the teachers lack the detailed knowledge you get by building and tweaking the thing. In that case, I think the "support staff" would quickly turn into the "printing shop" that does all the actual work. If you want to volunteer for that position, you're assuming responsibility for an unlimited time sink.
There's also a throughput problem: one 3D printer can crank out one not-very-large object per class session. Set up teams of three students and you still have maybe ten objects to build, far too many for one printer.
a non-profit couldn't be set up to buy ToM Kits for schools?
A traveling 3D printer "show" might work. Teachers could handle the object design & simulated builds, then for one week the printers and their wranglers descend on the class in Make-a-Thon style. Given, say, five printers, you could get through those ten objects in two days, with enough time for some redesign and rebuild.
However, my Shop Assistant points out that the curriculum really doesn't have any space for anything that's not mandated by the No Child Left Behind regulations. If it doesn't advance those objectives in a clear and distinct manner, it has no chance of survival, no matter how interested and motivated any single teacher might be.
