pubs.acs.

org/jchemeduc Technology Report

Use of 3D Printing to Manufacture Document Camera Mounts in

Support of Online Education Shifts during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Eric J. Davis* and Kraig Wheeler
Cite This: J. Chem. Educ. 2020, 97, 2691−2695 Read Online

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ABSTRACT: The 2020 pandemic involving SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) resulted in a

rapid shift to online education for instructors at every level around the world. This shift
occurred with little training and minimal resources available due to the rapidity of onset. In
this technology report, we describe the use of 3D printing to rapidly manufacture mounts
Downloaded via 176.119.141.143 on September 8, 2020 at 19:39:36 (UTC).

for commonly used webcams, which allow them to be pointed downward and serve as
document cameras for those instructors and students accustomed to board-based
pedagogical methods. These mounts were designed to connect a webcam to a standard
laboratory ring stand and could be printed using as little as 55 g of plastic ($1.38 per unit
using plastic at $25.00 per 1000 g) in about 3 h per mount using default printer settings.
The use of these mounts allowed a semblance of normality in pedagogy for both students
and instructors during the rapid shift to online education, and this was reflected in student
evaluations from a General Chemistry II and Organic Chemistry II course where they were
utilized.
KEYWORDS: Distance Learning/Self Instruction, Internet/Web-Based Learning, Multimedia-Based Learning

■ INTRODUCTION
In response to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and resulting
shutdown of academic institutions around the world, educators
were required to rapidly shift instructional modes, teaching
styles, and teaching philosophies into online, distance-learning
formats. For academic disciplines traditionally taught face-to-
face, this pedagogical shift provided numerous challenges as in-
class discussions moved from in-class instruction to web-based
meetings. However, for those disciplines and instructors where
in-class instruction took place using a chalkboard or white-
board discussions and activities, the impact to online learning
was profound.
While technology exists to allow extended instruction
through touchscreen-based screen capture/annotation software
or commercially produced, dedicated document cameras,1−4
lecture notes and slides that were to be adapted to online
instruction, USB webcams provided by campus technology (or
personally owned prior to the pandemic), laboratory ring
stands, and a 3D printer.
3D printing has become prevalent within chemical
education, with numerous examples in the recent literature.5,6
3D printing has been used in chemical education toward
improving student understanding in lecture through providing
hands-on interactive projects,7−19 enhancing laboratory
methods through hands-on learning20−31 and the development
of libraries of 3D models for use across the curriculum.24,32
The usefulness, simplicity, and flexibility of 3D printing, even
in its infancy as a technology, cannot be overstated with
respect to chemical education. It is with this perspective that
the problem of board-based instruction in distance-learning
was approached.

■
these modes of content delivery were limited in availability and
user expertise for distance-learning purposes in response to the 3D-PRINTED WEBCAM MOUNT
COVID-19 pandemic. For those without prior access to such
technologies, the rapid onset of COVID-19 forced alternative In the interest of time forced by the rapid onset of the COVID-
pedagogical methods in an era when both time and resources 19 pandemic, the developed webcam mounts were simple,
rugged tools designed for use with a common ring stand which
were scarce. Given the extensive use of chalkboard/whiteboard
may be found in any laboratory setting. Proper chemical
resources in the chemical sciences, it is not surprising that
chemical educators at all levels were impacted by this
technological shortfall. As educators in a liberal-arts, primarily Special Issue: Insights Gained While Teaching Chem-
undergraduate institution, we represent educators in the istry in the Time of COVID-19
general chemistry and organic chemistry curriculum who Received: June 12, 2020
previously relied on in-class, board-based instruction and Revised: July 13, 2020
needed to adapt this teaching style to distance-learning in a Published: August 4, 2020
short period of time. The tools on hand were the prepared
© 2020 American Chemical Society and
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00629
2691 J. Chem. Educ. 2020, 97, 2691−2695
Journal of Chemical Education
Figure 1. Rendered drawing of camera mount as designed. The hole
on the right-side of the mount is used for attaching the mount to a
ring stand, while the rectangular slot on the left allows screws to hold
a webcam in place.
hygiene must be ensured with the selection of ring stand and
cleaning prior to its use as a webcam base. The cameras on
hand were Logitech C270, USB-based webcams. At the time of
writing, these were inexpensive ($40) and readily available for
purchase. However, in the interest of utility, the webcam
mount was designed to work with any monitor-mount webcam
through screw-attachments designed to securely hold the
mount and camera in place. The hole size was configured to
work with the baseplate of several commercial webcams, per
the schematics of these cameras. In addition, the original
designs for this mount have been made available in Supporting
Information and on Thingiverse33 (link in citation) for
modification.
Figure 2. Photographs of (a) webcam mount as printed with hardware installed and (b) webcam mounted to ring stand with document underneath
for recording.
pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Technology Report
The mount was designed using the online tool “OnShape”, a
3D computer-aided design (CAD) program that provides free
access to the service for educators.34 Figure 1 shows a CAD-
rendered drawing of the mount as designed. Detailed
schematics are available in Supporting Information. This
mount was designed for standard ISO 1/4 in. diameter screws.
For the photograph presented in Figure 2a, 1/4-20 hardware
was utilized. The slots on top provide access for 1/4 in. nuts to
fit securely and allow metal-to-metal threading without reliance
upon threaded plastic from the 3D printing process. This
improved the longevity of the part and allowed it to be used
throughout the online transition without noticeable wear. The
hole was designed to allow any size of ring stand pole to fit and
be securely held with another 1/4-20 bolt. Figure 2b is a
photograph of the complete setup.
■
3D PRINTING
All models used were printed on an Ultimaker 3 (Dynamism,
Chicago, IL) 3D printer using the software provided with the
3D printer (Cura 4.6.1). This software accepted models from
OnShape (Cambridge, MA) (*.stl format) and sliced them
into the format required by the printer (*.gcode). The printer
used was a fused deposition modeling (FDM) style printer
using polylactic acid (PLA) filament. While other plastics
could be used in the printing of these mounts, PLA provided
sufficient strength and ease of printing and is inexpensive, and
waste parts are compostable. The nozzle was held at 215 °C,
with a heated print bed (glass) held at 60 °C. Prints were
developed at 20% infill (triangular), with 1 mm outer walls,
and 1 mm top and bottom layers at 90 mm/s print speed.
Under these settings, each mount required approximately 3 h
to print and 55 g of plastic with no noticeable warping. At the
2692 https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00629
J. Chem. Educ. 2020, 97, 2691−2695
Journal of Chemical Education pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Technology Report

Figure 3. Screen capture of video recorded using 3D-printed camera mount. (A) Demonstration of the instructor view within Panopto as a
recording for Organic Chemistry II (Diels−Alder reaction lecture) was prepared. (B) Student view within the native Panopto application of the
final videos recorded for and provided to a General Chemistry II lecture (galvanic cells). The use of a document camera allowed a more authentic
approach to online learning for those accustomed to on-board lecturing.

cost of PLA at the time of writing, this equated to $1.38 per capture the second screen. If “Capture PowerPoint” was used,
mount constructed. With the hardware used as described on-screen tools such as the laser pointer and slide annotation
above, the total cost for the mount was under $3 (USD). were not captured in the video. Videos were provided to the

■
VIDEO RECORDING
All videos were recorded using the Panopto video recording
system.35 Recordings were made using the Ultra quality
setting, and audio was captured with the microphone built into
the webcams (Logitech 270) with levels adjusted per room. In
order to capture the slides on screen, Panopto was set to
2693
students through Panopto links within the university learning
management system (Blackboard at the time of this writing).
■ PEDAGOGICAL USE
When used, the webcam is held vertically, pointed downward
toward the surface beneath (Figure 2b). This setup allowed the
capture of any document placed under the camera, and with
https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00629
J. Chem. Educ. 2020, 97, 2691−2695
Journal of Chemical Education
pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
the camera described, no additional light sources were found to
be necessary for legibility under multiple lighting conditions,
users, and locations. Figure 3 demonstrates the camera view
with a cocapture of slides as presented to students using
Panopto. In this pedagogical use, slides were presented during
an active voice-over by the instructor of the course. Examples
and/or diagrams were printed prior to recording in order to
allow the instructor to annotate or work out the example in
real-time during the recording so the students could see the
work as it was completed. An example video demonstrating the
use of this pedagogical style is available in Supporting
Information (this video was a downloadable version of the
native Panopto view in Figure 3 and combines both the screen
capture and document camera into a single video). During
viewing within the native Panopto application, students could
swap the views shown as “main” or “secondary” for those times
when work was primarily on the document camera versus via
slide delivery.
In addition to the use of these webcam mounts for content
and material delivery (both courses utilized these mounts and
were delivered via an asynchronous approach to lecture
material with prerecorded videos), they also allowed
instructors to hold regular office hours. The design allowed
the camera to be rapidly changed between facing the desktop
and user so instructors were able to talk with students during
scheduled meeting times and work through problems with
students on paper beneath the document camera.
While the time in at-home learning was not ideal for most
students and instructors, the use of this mount was highly
successful, as evidenced through student evaluations following
the end of the academic semester in which these were utilized.
Evaluation comments by students in both courses by the
authors (covering General Chemistry II and Organic
Chemistry II) included comments such as “...did an amazing
job transition his class to online!” and “thank you for making
this transition smooth”. No student feedback was directly
solicited regarding the modality of the lecture delivery or the
transition to online education in response to the pandemic.
These comments were made voluntarily in the course of the
standard university end of term evaluation questionnaires.
■ CONCLUSIONS
While the pedagogy presented was not the norm or ideal for
the instructors of record in these courses, the use of simple 3D-
printed webcam mounts allowed minimal disruption to the
students and instructors in terms of overall pedagogical style.
These mounts were utilized in asynchronous content delivery
and regular office hours for working example problems out
with students in real time. Student evaluations of the course
following completion of one-half of the semester in distance-
learning were positive.
■
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
* Supporting Information
sı
The Supporting Information is available at https://pubs.ac-
s.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00629.
Zip file containing editable (*.sldprt) and printable
(*.STL) camera mount files (ZIP)
Short video recorded with the webcam mount as
described, detailing the utility of the mount in
pedagogical use (MP4)
2694
■
Technology Report
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
Eric J. Davis − Department of Chemistry, Whitworth University,
Spokane, Washington 99208, United States; orcid.org/
0000-0001-9844-6243; Email: ericdavis@whitworth.edu
Author
Kraig Wheeler − Department of Chemistry, Whitworth
University, Spokane, Washington 99208, United States;
orcid.org/0000-0001-6752-7542
Complete contact information is available at:
https://pubs.acs.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00629
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
■
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the Whitworth University H.
Johnston Endowment and M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust for
their support of this work.
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