Kings Synthetic Anatomy course development blog

measure map speculation and storytelling - the what why and how explored 

Wonderful to devise and lead this session with Andrew and have Celia and Les on the team - learnt so much - had to set aside my anxiety about failure, students being bored or lost - and leave space for things to float a bit, for different things to happen. Fascinating to see the different styles of the groups emerge - the serious, the whimsical, the analytical, the jokers.  And loved watching Celia, Les and Andrew dive in to the different conversations and poke / provoke / cheer / cajole - brilliant.   We gave them scraps of clothing and measuring tools and asked them to look and think and make up a 3-minute story to present to their peers - who scored them on clarity, originality and story telling. The lessons from previous sessions seemed to have touched them somehow - more exploratory observation including touch, more confident use of pens and pencils, using their sketcbooks and working at scale.  Our outline lesson plan below and some images here too -  intro

the steep learning curve that is 3D printing is going well. I managed to print a brain with the two colour printer where the foundation struts are a different colour. I continue to be fascinated by the question what does science look like? so at the moment the imagery within the program is more interesting that the actual objects, although there is an abstract magic around making real the virtual which I am sure I will never fail to be amazed by.  In the drawing workshop the  level of serious fun and energy in the room (for 2 hours) was awesome.  The students progressed from 'this is a laugh', which it was, to taking the whole thing very seriously as they became focused and realised that drawing requires practice and adoption of a way of thinking to develop skills but that it can be a way to access looking and seeing. All this under the watchful eye of Celia who drove the session with a focused calmness. The drawing techniques and rules that were engaged in by the students w

I can't sleep on Thursday nights because I'm so excited about this module! Firstly, we managed to get our dual extruder printer working and Les was one of the first to run a print - mini brain - very beautiful. Les admiring his creation Our students learnt about the various uses of 3D printing at Guy's & St. Thomas' hospitals and then we had a brainstorm session to come up with the next breakthrough use of this technology in healthcare. Ideas ranged from 3D printing emergency supplies in space to printing out DNA one nucleotide at a time. 3D printing whole cadavers for dissection I taught the students about advanced features in ITKSnap for segmentation and nearly everyone decided to segment and print my femur / tibia. Working hard at finishing a knee joint Gorgeous sketchbook decoration - well done Devi! The afternoon was spent improving drawing techniques and having a lot of fun in the process.