When teaching multivariable functions, I've started using 3D prints of their graphs. In a lab this week, for example, students will have this 3D print in front of them and then have to sketch a contour plot based on it.
I use it in Science for our robotics projects. I tell students that if during their design phase they think of something that our Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits don't have, they should create it & we'll print it! :) We use Tinkercad to design the 3D models then our printer software to slice them to print.
I had a student print a cool visualization of how the gradient interacts with tangent planes that I use all of the time. It’s a cylinder that fits into a trapezoidal prism and shows how the partial derivative vectors and the gradient vectors can be visualized. I’ll snap a pic when I’m in my office.
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