Junior Design Challenge: Physical TNT Combination

 

Challenge: For students to combine a physical novelty object with a second object created using Tinkercad.

Background: There were a number of objects that featured in our 2025 School Market Day, one of the most popular novelty items was a small TNT Minecraft box, that was a candle holder.  It had been located from Thingiverse where it was available as a free download.  We used it in conjunction with the Glow-in-the-dark-PLA.

In this challenge we gave the students a physical copy of the TNT which is 20mm by 20mm.   The students were challenged to use this item to then create an original item to work in conjunction with the item.   Initially a lot of the students tended to just copy the TNT rather than having an object work in conjunction with that - we highlighted the examples and encouraged the students to think outside of the box.

The first range of designs were typically as shown left.   The actual TNT is shown on the right, with the students interpretation of it shown on the left.   The dimensions are close however the student could have further refined the design and put more details into it.   

The student also chose to make the copy instead of looking at ways to have the object interact with something else.

The student shown left used a basic design and then added several other aspects to it.  The original TNT is the orange design in the middle of the picture.  The seven year old student then added the 'pac-man' like figures to the left and the right of the TNT box before then adding another layer, the red TNT which can all be seen in the photograph.

The student could have put additional time into the designs and improving the scale and composition.

Further development was shown when students moved to creating something that combined different elements.   Obviously shown left is the TNT at the base of the design and then bridge was created over the top of it, with a further detail that two cars from the main Tinkercad interface were added.

This activity is being added to the 'non 3D Printing' Tinkercad design challenges that are featured on a slideshow that is located on the blog here.