3D Printed 'Rare' Panda - With Storage

 

Challenge: For an eight year old student to push their design skills to create an original version of a Minecraft creation that has a recognition factor and also a purpose beyond being a 'novelty print'.  

Background: Without wishing to sound repetitious there are a series of posts from this site over the last few days and weeks relating to the use of the students iPasds, Tinkercad (the browser) or the Tinkercad App for the students to be involved in CAD design to create their own versions of these creatures from the game Minecraft.   

A reminder that as a visitor to this blog you can use the search bar top right to use the keyword ''Minecraft' to view several years of examples from the students from our school.   One of the more challenging examples from this series was the 'rate panda' shown left.  In this example students spent a considerable time to gain the recognition factor by correctly reimagining the facials in particular of this animal.  In the Tinkercad version the students were very aware of the colour matching required.

Level of Difficulty: Medium/Hard - this animal was one of several panda chosen by the students and in particular this version requires subtle differences from the regular one.   Two different students were involved in the production of this piece working collaboratively with each other (as you can do when working in Tinkercad).   A third student who had expertise was also called in to help with the facial details.

Size: As again this is something of a one one the print has quite significant dimensions.  The print is 130mm high, 100mm long and 70mm wide.  The legs are each 10mm by 10mm and 40mm high.   The base of the Panda is 90mm by 70mm by 40mm.   For storage there are various holes in the back of the Panda.  Most of these measure 20mm by 10mm and are between 15mm and 40mm deep.   The largest hole is the one tha tis at the rear of the design which runs the length of the body of the Panda.

Cost/Price: We have been quite clear that some of the designs in this run have been deliberately oversized.   This has meant that they are not necessarily intended to be a class set or a copy for each student.   This print used 144g of PLA to print (including rafting) this had a price point of $3.60.

Timeframe: Using the Bambu H2D this print took five hours and ten minutes to complete on the regular settings.  We would have been reluctant to produce this on a slower machine or a machine not capable of subtle details (such as the lettering on the back of the design to label each of the stationary area).

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: The obviously next step is the colour matching for the print by spray painting it, white and then highlighting it to follow the colour matching.  The areas of storage on the back of the design could have been enlarged to store more meaningful material as while they allow one item each it could potentially hold more.  The labelling of the different boxes could have been refined better and perhaps organised slightly differently.  Finally the general shape of the panda is here but could be further refined by the students.