3D Printed Junior Novelty Cat

 

Challenge: For student to create something unique, special and innovative in their own time.

Background: We are now moving towards the end of the term one in New Zealand.  As part of the challenge we are balancing the time between school events and commitments and creativity.

Our students have been encouraged to create innovative and creative designs which has required the students to work in their own time.   This project came out as a result of this process.

The student concerned is eight years old and was part of the second. cohort of students this year that is student who worked and used Tinkercad last year - there was no input into the project the student was responsible for it.

One of the opportunities we want to take is to encourage students when they are being pro-active.  Normally we pose questions such as 'what is the purpose of this print?' 'why have you designed it?" and we have a list of prompts to work through.

In this instance the purpose is simply to encourage the student with their design.   The design strictly speaking doesn't have an absolute purpose at this point, however once the student has the physical print their ideas should develop more.  Already its been compared to a 'tumbling monkeys' game because of the tail. 

Level of Difficulty: Low - the main components of this design are available and recognisable from the main Tinkercad interface are easily accessible.

Size: As shown in the diagram (which is the ruler feature of Tinkercad the design measures 80mm long and as 50mm wide.  

Cost Price: The print used 22g of filament to complete its printing.   This had a price point of $0.55.

Timeframe: The completed print took forty eight minutes to complete.

What we would differently/Next steps for the students: The student could have put more design into the piece - there are claws/paws available that could have been added the student managed to get a level of expression but could have had more details such as the ears or defining the back leg.  The biggest thought process would be the purpose of the print and what it could be used for.