3D Printed Numbers: Eight Years On

 

The longest print that we've maintained is one that took place in 2018.   We at the time were looking at providing numbers for our classrooms for the management of evacuations.   We had a set of iron numbers however we wanted to replace them and choose 3D Printing numbers.   The issue at the time was a question about the longevity of the 3D Printed numbers and the PLA - the area where the numbers were placed was in full sun and also exposed to the weather during winter in New Zealand.

Eight years later we can state categorically that the integrity of the print itself has been maintained.   There is clear evidence of weathering of the colouring of the PLA (and we could like to point out that we have resprayed the prints since they were first completed).

You can read the original post and see the original lettering from this post in August 2018.  There was a further update on the project and the numbers from March 2021.    There are also updates from 2019 - all of which can be searched from this blog by using the keyword search 'numbers' in the 'Search this blog'.

It is our intention to continue to have their numbers on display as long as is feasibly possible as long as  they serve the purpose.    In all likelihood we will continue to respray the numbers again at some point in the future - the only losses that we have occurred is that students playing on the field (football/soccer) have kicked a ball in the direction of the prints and when struck directly by the ball - and we have lost four in the last eight years.

Working in Miniature with 3D Printing

 

We've got a range of prints our students are working on at the moment.   While some of these are somewhat on the larger scale in terms of scope and size its also important to highlight that the 3D Printers are able to sometimes print detail into prints.

We have blogged with the students work on this site for over ten years during that time the printers have evolved at an increasing impressive rate.   We've previously also identified that now thanks to companies or sites like Kiwifil its possible to use recycled PLA or have prints, projects and rafting reused.    The machines that we use are using an increasingly accurate and detailed such as recent prints for the pencil topper that featured yesterday.

The examples that we are showing here have been produced by a student designing independently after two months in the classroom, working with their iPad, Tinkercad App and were printed on our Bambu H2D.

The prints shown are as they were removed from the machine without any 'rafting' or waste plastic - the prints took twenty two minutes to complete.   They used seven and a half grams of PLA filament to complete and this had a price point of $0.18c to complete.  The prints were not project with AR/VR (using the Tinkercad App) but they could have been as we have been doing regularly on this blog.   This was completed by a student who is seven from cohort one, 2026.  For visitors from overseas from this blog please be aware when we quote prices for the filament and prints we are discussing the price in NZD.

This example of the same project is representing a students creation of another pair of earrings.   This student is from cohort two, is eight years old and was able to produce this again independently without the need for teacher input.   The design was completed in Tinkercad and the student then duplicated the pair to have a matching pair.  As someone who is a regular wearer of earrings and who intends to wear a pair of these once she is happy with the finished design she is intending to make adjustments to ensure they hand in a way that she is happy with.

The dimensions of this completed print can be seen from the screenshot of the Tinkercad work plane (left).  A pair of the earrings took forty minutes to print (on standard settings) and used eight grams of PLA to complete.  This had a price point for the pair of $0.20c.   This student is also going to revise the design to include more details (on the arms).

The student has already started the modification process (as shown left).   The left had figure has revised arms, the students name has been put on the design and an adjustment was made to the eyelet.

This site has a number of projects that feature miniature sized prints.  You can search for them using the search bar top right hand corner of this blog or you can also look at examples such as miniature bees from November last year, our series of prints on miniature jugs and vases which evolved into a forced perspective digital photography task from March of this year,    We also had an entire years project based around a Dolls House where our students made miniature furniture for the inside of it, see this project summarised here.