3D Printed Ear Rings - Refinement and Adaptions

While we are continuing to work on the various projects that are running at school as we head into the last week of term for term one, 2025, we also have a number of students revisiting some of our previous projects to ensure that they have mastery of the task or in some cases have further refined their designs.

In the case of the ear ring task that was detailed previously as the students have been using Tinkercad we have a classroom space set up via the website.  This allows students to have multiple projects running up also allows us to think about the events that are coming up later in the year - specifically our school market day.  

Realistically this type of project would allow us to print a range of individual designs for the market day and allow each student to have their own creation that could be used to showcase their creativity.

There has been no input from the teacher with these students designs they are creating them independently and identifying for the teacher when they can be printed.   As the size of prints tends to be in the 30mm to 40mm range the print time for a pair of ear rings tends to be under one hour.   They are an ideal task for students to be creative but also have a realistic about printing, including designs that do not work or need to be reworked.

We also have allowed students to use the search bar from #tinkercad to alter and adapt the pre-made designs.   Usually this is something that we restrict with the students ideas having more of an emphasis placed on them, but in this instance as the designs are relatively small we want to be able to allow the students to create something, have it successful and be able to celebrate this.

A good example of this line of thinking is the monster feet design shown left, this has been accessed via the search bar, the student was required to just connect a ring to the shape, group it and the design was finished.

We have in our classroom on display the Dolls House which is the actual rebuild that we are attempting.  We have been completing prints, adding them on and then discussing with the students how they look and what else we can make.   In the photograph left you can see early examples and attempts at flooring, currently just created by laminating basic screenshots however the intention is decals and vinyl coverings of the wall and the floors using the Versa Sign Maker.

We also have encouraged the students to think about their designs during the upcoming New Zealand School Holidays.    It will allow us to print a volume of material and projects and do to also consider some larger scale projects that students have worked on that will potentially involve a longer span of time.   It is too early for students Market Day projects at this stage although we want them considering and thinking about the possibilities coming up.