I didn't think that we were gonna go as far
as to make dinosaurs with 3D printing.
We're literally printing a skeleton.
"Capturing Dinosaurs" is the first time the
Museum has tried to use digital fabrication
as a way to teach young people about science,
specifically about paleontology.
They're being given a group of real fossils.
Along with these bones they're being given
the tools to create 3D models of them.
What's really cool and sort of unique about
this program is you get to go to places that
the public do not have access to normally.
You also get to meet real scientists.
We got to see where they prep the fossils.
We got to see all the places they scan 3D
in the Museum.
We got to see all this really cool stuff I
never even knew they had.
Just to be able to say that you held a dinosaur
fossil—it was exciting.
The Paleontology Department was kind enough
to give us a lot of the bones from Allosaurus,
which is from the Jurassic.
Part of the Program was that we did not tell
them the animal that they were scanning, so
part of the puzzle was looking at the bones
that they were scanning, and trying to figure
out which dinosaur does it come from.
A lot of students thought it was T-Rex, some
thought it came from a long-necked sauropod.
Our classroom is actually the Museum of Natural
History.
The students are able to go out into the halls
and look at the actual exhibits when they
have a question about, for instance, how did
the Allosaurus hold its hands?
The youth took literally between five to six
thousand photos, which were then turned into
about 150 different models.
Every time they were taking a photo, every
time they looked at a model, every time they
tried to stitch those models together, they
were looking with careful detail at minute
aspects of those bones—the same thing that
paleontologists do.
It really taught me how paleontologists reconstruct
and study dinosaurs and how they have to deal
with disarticulated bones from different individuals,
and broken bones.
I didn't expect to see what we put together
to actually come out.
It was really precise.
The fact that I was able to remake the bones
was really exciting and amazing.
It has inspired me to maybe one day even go
to college for paleontology.
I always thought that I wanted to work with
technology, but now after doing this I learned
that I can do both of them together, that
I fell that I can—I can do this.
