Tuesday, February 13, 2018

3D Printed Horse (with storage)

Above: Print pre rafting removal showing saddle storage
Challenge: Student wanted to design their second individual print and wanted to feature horses with the design.   Student is a Y5 student, nine years old, designing for the first week of school.
Background: The student found a horse based design, and individualised it by placing a plate on the base of the horse, which their name was sunk into.   To ensure that it could be actually used for storage the location of the saddle/back of the horse had a cylinder shape dropped down into it.  A decision was made to print the horse with Glow-in-the-dark filament as we were experimenting with using it again (previously we'd run some seasonal themed prints but these had proved to be of limited success - see below and previous prints).   The student created a complicated large print, however as it was the first time a print of this type had been attempted the student was encouraged to go for it and complete the process and printing.
Above: With rafting removed - note loss of tail
Level of Difficulty: Medium.  The horse was sourced from a 3D printed site, the base was designed from scratch by the student, who had been shown how to drop her name into a design.   She also had worked out how to drop a cyclinder shape into her design to hollow it out.
Timeframe: This was a twenty hour print.  It could have had a reduced time had the base plate been halved in size.
Size: The dimensions of this print were significant.   The base measured 25 centimetres across, the height of the head of the horse was 20cm from the base.   The base was 1cm thick and as noted this could have been reduced in alter the print time. 
What we would do differently: Glow-in-the-dark filament was used primarily because it was the last spool before more material arrives.   This has proven problematic in the past, as we didn't have it stored in air tight containers once the spool was started.   We had residual filament on the print which was removed however we are intending to tidy up the print once we have the ability to do so.   The student did not create the horse design obviously and usually these designs we do not print, however they had modified it for a purpose which may encourage other students working on along a similar line.   It conceivably could have been printed to a smaller scale.  Rafting removal (which was done by the teacher fearful of the legs breaking, which did not occur) saw the tail break.  This was kept by the teacher and will be super glued back into place once the print has been cleaned.
Next Step for Student:  None given all the circumstances, this was an extremely impressive first print for a student.
Please note: The filament used for this print was Glow-In-The-Dark.  As a consequence we raised the print temperature by the recommended 15 degrees to ensure that it was completed successfully.  This appeared to makea significant difference to the success of the print.

2 comments:

  1. You and your students are doing great work- shame the tail came off but great it isn't something that a little super glue can't fix.

    I used a video from Auroa School yesterday when I was talking to teachers about Seesaw.

    Thank you'

    Allanah

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  2. Allanah
    I am really pleased that you left the comment and thank you for using a video from our school. No its something that a little superglue can't fix and its something that we've experienced a few times. Nothings perfect.
    Mr Webb

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