Market Day Project: Slugs (Articulated)

We have talked at length about our school/student market day that is fast approaching when we are hoping to use the technology that we have available for our students to showcase projects that they have been working on.

The Snapmaker 3D Printer has been an important part of this with a number of groups opting to create various Flexi animals or create a range of accessories that relate or can work in with them.   

While we have featured some of these animals already one in particular needs to be highlighted due to the length of time, and discussions in the staff room have led to additional usage potential.

We sourced the articulated slug from Thingiverse.  As a print it is ideal in that its total print times is forty five minutes.   There is absolutely zero waste or rafting associated with the print.

The business run by the students intends to create additional media around caring and looking after the slug.

The slug measures 100mm long and 20mm wide with a height of 10mm.   It has five points of articulation and a head with two antenna on the end of it.

There was some concern that the antenna would be brittle or easily broken however handling this reasonably has led to no breakages.

The additional use of the slug has been expressed by one of the junior teachers who wishes to potentially use a group of the slugs to teach times tables or skip counting.   The teacher believes that by being able to handle the prints that a student could skip count using the print to handle and manipulate the numbers and the counting.   The slugs could be coloured coded with the segments being spray painted for different colour and number combinations.

The other thing that occurred during the printing of one of the slugs was a power cut.   The power cut eliminated electricity for the 3D Printer for ten to fifteen seconds.   The printer was able to recognise that the power had been cut - and was able to complete the print continuing from the point where the print stopped.   When this had occurred with the previous printer that we were using and featured on this blog it would result in the printer needing to be unblocked and the print started again.   This could cause major issues that would take several hours to potentially repair.