Many institutions now have access to inexpensive 3D printing capability.  These can be used in Nanoscience education for both conceptual and practical applications.  A 3D printer can be used to make models of atomic lattice structure.  Atomic packing factor and theoretical density calculations can be somewhat difficult for students to understand and I find that it often helps to have a hands-on model that can be manipulated to aid in understanding.  In the past I have used wooden beads and skewers in a foam substrate to create the crystal lattices but since I now have access to a 3D printer I thought crystal lattice structures would be a good application for 3D printing.  The following image shows the results.

The image shows a simple cubic lattice structure on the left, two small simple cubic lattices, a FCC lattice and FCC with the three common lattice planes cross sectioned (100),(110), and (111).  The centers are marked so that they could be measured for a theoretical density, or planar density calculation.  If you would like to try these on your own printer I am including .stl files in this blog post.  These files are pretty large but I was able to get a smaller one to fit.  FCC4x4Planes2.STL

If you have access to Solidworks you may be able to use the original file.  FCC4x4Planes.SLDPRT