Over the last decade, schools and universities have extensively adopted 3D printing technology in classrooms and workshops. This adoption has been driven in part by the interest of individual academics in its potential for revitalising making in education (e.g. Loy, 2014), and in part by policy changes associated with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) directives (Horejsi, 2014; Novak, 2019a). These policies include the National STEM School Education Strategy 2016–2026 in Australia (Council, 2015), as well as global guidelines for the technology, for example in the 3D printing section of the NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition (Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada, & Freeman, 2015). This NMC Horizon Report estimated the time for 3D printing to become mainstream in education as two to three years. The report highlighted the importance of the technology as a follow-on to digital education strategies such as ‘bring your own device’, which is determined significant for schools in the short term, and a platform for developments such as wearable technologies, anticipated for 2021–2026. The justification for the inclusion of 3D printing was based on its identified role in ‘integrated studies’, rather than technology subjects alone: “The goal is for students to understand the various intersections between technology and virtually any subject matter, acquiring a skill set that is desired in the contemporary workforce” (Johnson et al., 2015, p. 8). This was described as part of an anticipated shift towards deeper learning strategies, where a reduction of compartmentalised learning would allow for more complex, project-based learning.