Jack’s Playground Plan - Extension Activities

Have you read Jack’s Playground Plan by Shannon McClintock Miller with your students yet? This inspirational and fun story highlights how Jack and his classmates use a digital design program to create a practical, fun and inclusive playground that would be welcoming to children of all abilities. Created in partnership with Capstone and ISTE, this early chapter book offers an engaging and relatable introduction to important concepts in technology education. 

Jack’s Playground Plan Extension Activity

Create New Toy Designs With Tinkercad and hold them in your hand with a Merge Cube

On the Time to Innovate page in Jack’s Playground Plan, students use their innovative designer skills to create a new toy. 

In this extension activity, students will use Tinkercad to create their new toy with this free, web-based 3D design platform. Find Tinkercad at www.tinkercad.com. 

When their new toy is ready, you can have a Toy Showcase by walking around to see everyone's creative designs. 

One more fun extension within Tinkercad is to hold their toy using the Merge Cube and augmented reality (AR). 

Follow the instructions below to get started holding your virtual creation in the palm of your hand! 

Sign up for Merge EDU to get access:

• Get a Free Trial of Merge EDU at trymerge.com
• Download the Merge Object Viewer app and sign in
• Print a Merge Paper Cube mergeedu.com/paper for each student or small group

Send your creation to Merge EDU from Tinkercad:

• From the design in Tinkercad, go to Send To and select Merge EDU. 

For the step-by-step directions for sending your objects to Merge EDU, see this article: https://support.mergeedu.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052931192-Exporting-Objects-from-Tinkercad 

Hold your creation in your hand with a Merge Cube

Finally, you can use the Merge Object Viewer app to view your 3D toy in the palm of your hand with the Merge Cube, and share it with your friends!

• Launch and sign in to Merge Object Viewer
• Tap the menu at the top, and under My Library select Objects 
• Select your creation
• Select “Cube” at the top of your screen to activate the camera
• Hold your Merge Paper Cube in front of the camera and interact with your creation!

For the step-by-step directions for holding your 3D creation on the Merge Cube, see this help article: https://support.mergeedu.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052931132-Visualize-your-own-3D-creations-on-the-Merge-Cube