Novelty Initial Design: Donut

 

Challenge: Junior student to produce something unique and functional in Tinkercad.

Background: Its the start of the school year after two weeks of challenges and design ideas the students are working on several projects.  A number of students have taken the initiative and started to create and work on their own designs.   While it isn't possible to print all of these there are some that we have selected as being functional or having potential so we have followed through with the process of printing them for the students.   There is a very loose criteria for this - it is presently depending on the availability of the printer (and what other projects are under consideration, available PLA etc).   In this case the design was from a first time student and it met a number of criteria.

We are hoping that it will inspire others, get them thinking and then lead onto other things, designs and creations for the students involved.   The student who designed and created this is a Y4 student who is eight years old - designing for the second week and as noted created this in their own time, obviously using the basic Tinkercad interface,

The design has proved popular in the classroom and has been passed around from students to provide a range of fun that are creating some provoking questions.

Level of Difficulty: Low - this is created independently from the teacher by someone in their own time making something 'fun'.  It involves one specific shape followed by some additions.

Size: The donut measures 140mm across from tip to tip and the sides are 40mm wide and 40mm high.

Cost/Price: To produce this item took 98g of filament.    There was some rafting that was associated with the sprinkles.  Using the Bambulab sim information we can determine that the print cost $2.50 to make with regular filament (in this case Bambu 'Orange Glass').   

Timeframe: This print took three hours and fifteen minutes to complete.   Relative versions would need to take the size required into account depending on what the purpose of this would be.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: 

We have experimented with the donut in the school pool.   Over the years we have become aware that a standard print with a twenty per cent infill is essentially able to float in water.   Last year when we had our school Market Day we had an entire product and group business based around this fact.

We also allowed the student to have it in the classroom and have 'fun' with it by trying it in different locations.    It was suggested that this could be used to tie a bag together (as the knot or bow could be tied around the donut holding it all together).

Another student used it as the base for a water bottle and students identified that they would be able to use it to hold a water bottle in place.   They were considering using it with a student who might have trouble balancing it and have it fall over.   To complete this purpose the design would need to be resized to meet the diameter of a bottle.   It was used as it was to play tag (particularly in the pool) however the students wanted to make it available as some form of ring toss game - but again it was considering that it would need to be resized and remade.

Although it might not be particularly obvious from the shots that can be seen with this post the 'sprinkles' part of the design sort-of kinda-worked but didn't really.   A number of them didn't survive the printing process, they were either removed when the rafting was taken off or fell off when completed.  There are several that appear to be attached to the print but not securely although this week the student didn't report any additional loss with the print.

The biggest consideration for a change would be the student going smaller or having more of a specific purpose.   One of the things that the students realised is that by having a 140mm wide donut there was a tendency to use it as a bracelet - or that they could have easily included a name or a description on it by utilising the skill that they learnt with the stencils - making a hole in an object.