Sunday, November 18, 2018

3D Printed 'Name' Design with Revision


Above: Original design shown printed
Challenge: Student wanted to design a gift for another student themed around her name.   The student designed and completed this project, however on reflection it needed considerable revision to be completed to a standard that the student was happy with.

 Background: This student who is ten years old has shown creativity and flair with her 3D Printing design.  Her intial design that is shown left was somewhat cluttered, featuring a number of additions to the base of the design.   This caused the printer a little difficulty to create so much detail in such a relatively small place, as a result a lot of the design look too crowded and the student who the print was intended for (Isabella) didn't have the obvious connection between her print and name. 
This was discussed with the student who went to redesign the print considerably.    The new design replaced the clutter of the original and focussed on having the name of the student featured on the design.  This featured two of the original additions to the first print but both were centred in the middle of the design, without additional clutter around them.   The 'name' part of the design, which was originally completly absent was now inserted into the middle of the design. 
Level of Difficutly: Medium - this design is relatively straight forward but it took a discussion with the student to acknowledge the details created by the printer to get to the final result.   Sometimes projects located online that require a lot of detail are best suited by using a smaller nozzle, but our preference (which is using a 3D Printer within a classroom containing nearly thirty students) is to use the largest nozzle that is possible for the speed of the prints that are produced (yes we could constantly switch back between both but we tend to allow the students to manage as much of the process as possible and not at the level yet of changing the hardware over, although they do change filament).   
The two designs next to each other
Timeframe: This print took six hours to complete, with the regular settings that are used on this site.  Purple happened to be the colour that was loaded into the machine rather than a specific colour choice and this in term happened to be a positive accident with the finished product.
Size: The top of the design is 130mm across, 60mm across in the middle and 130mm high.   The print has a height of 10mm.    Given the intention of the print, its design relative to this size, and the display potential of this there wouldn't be much reduction that would be possible in the size.
What we would do differently/next steps for students: The design as it stands dosen't have any capacity for it to be fixed to a wall or hung.   The students creation with the lettering into the base of the design meant that the 'rafiting' or backing hasn't been removed.   This is because the internal parts of the 'b' and the 'a' would be removed when the rafting taking away, affecting the design, ideally the end of the 'a' would also have been moved in slightly from the edge of the design as it is missing its end.


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