Fathers Day 3D Printing: Steps 101

 

Challenge: To produce a 3D Print that celebrates a particular event (or day).

Background: This Sunday in New Zealand is the Fathers Day celebration.  We wanted to target this as a potential project for 3D Printing.  We had a specific timeframe in mind, a goal and wanted to include levels of challenges for the students involved.  As noted previously we used previous creations and designs on this blog as a starting point and physical examples from our example box (where we have prints over the last few years in a number of boxes as discussion points, as examples and ways that we can encourage the students to design and create).

The other considerations with the classroom at present - we have now 24 students in the classroom (we are as many of you will know a regular mainstream classroom although we are very fortunate to be an Apple Distinguished School with 1:1 iPads for every student from Y1-Y8.

We also have had a number of students recently join our classroom, which has been wonderful, these students have not had experience with Tinkercad before, or using the technology that our students have, so for some of them, as we would do with many curriculum activities we want to be able to scaffold more for them or provide opportunities for them to be successful at a different level as in the case of nearly all of them they are taking their very first CAD design steps.

Finally the decision to complete the prints for the class has also shaped the designs - we can comfortably run two printers at one time, and both machines (our H2D and P1P Bambu) are reliable to produce prints that would meet the purpose.

Resources Used to Complete this Print: iPad, Tinkercad App, Bambu P1P, Blue Bambu PLA.

Level of Difficulty: Low - this would be considered a basic introductory task completed independently with a student on the first attempt.   Typically when introducing test to a design the only checks required are below to ensure the font is not going through the back or at the top to ensure that the font is touching the base plate.

Size: The print measures 110mm across the base and is 70mm high.   The print base is 5mm and the lettering is an additional 5mm (for a total including font of 10mm).

Cost/Price: The print uses 25g of PLA to complete this has a price point of $0.44c.  There was no support rafting with this design.  Had it been any smaller the lettering would have been very jammed up so the dimensions and hence the amount of PLA was about correct for this project.

Timeframe: To complete this print printer was operating for 45 minutes from start to finish.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: The students now was a basic 101 task completed can move onto more challenging and difficult tasks.