3D Printed Cartoon Ladybug

 

Challenge: For junior student to create an original insect, from scratch, using Tinkercad

Background: As regular visitors to this site will know we have one of our big school events incoming - our Pet Day for 2026.  When this takes place at the start of term four we have some class displays - one of which is a 'tin-can design' however with this design we wanted to showcase of the students creativity.  In this case our students have used their design skills in Tinkercad to create an insect that goes with the design.

We had a range of designs based on the students understanding of insects (which we had also been covering with our literacy work specifically our information report writing).  

 In this instance the student wanted to place the emphasis on the comedic value of the design making it cartoon like with its design.   The legs for the animal are in theory underneath and the wings are not separated as such.    Finally if you see the original design that was shown above the student was able to colour match the design, when the printing was completed the base colour was blue as shown, ideally the student would have had the option of a red or black base - or even a better solution would have been for the ability of the H2D Machine to print with a combination of two colours.     This has been demonstrated previously with our Warriors Coaster or last years Christmas decoration with the colours of Father Christmas.    One option that was not completed but this would have made an exceptional AR/VR projection object with a significant base and strong image.

Resourced used to create this print: iPad, Tinkercad App, Bambu H2D, Bambu PLA.

Level of Difficulty: Medium - as with the rest of the designs in this creation challenge the students were able to use their skills to create insects with a significant recognition factor.    

Size: The print measures 70mm across the front of the design and is 80mm long.   The design is 30mm high.

Cost/Price: The unit uses 30g of PLA filament to complete the print.  This has a price point of $0.58

Timeframe: This print took forty five minutes to complete.  This included a six minute timeframe for the printer to warm up and prepare for printing.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the students: As noted there are a couple of design features that could be developed for the purpose of making it more realistic - the legs if they were added to the design would cause it to be somewhat unbalanced.     At this stage the size of the design is another slight issue - at 80mm and 90mm this is significantly bigger than its real-life version.

School Holidays In New Zealand!

 

Thank you for this visit to this blog.   This blog has been featuring work from students from our school since 2014, with its first posts taking place in 2015.

Since then we have been posting regularly to showcase the work from our students at a small state school, that is also an Apple Distringuised School in Auroa, South Taranaki.

Primarily we focussed on sharing work related to 3D Printing but as time has evolved we have also shared work using our laser cutter, sticker machine and more general work involved Tinkercad.   

We also love to showcase work from our school such as our full sized DDR Dance Dance Revoultion machine and its students created videos.     We also have our famous Pinball Machine which has been adapted and customised to feature the teachers, students and staff of our wonderful school.

If you would like to see a summary of events, ideas and creations from our school you can look at our website or visit Mr Bloor's page which showcases much of an incredible special work.

If you would like to contact or talk to the teacher who is responsible for the management of this page you can contact them directly via email at:

myles.webb@gmail.com

Next term we have our famous Auroa School Pet Day in the first week of school.  For this event we have numerous tie ins with our work and technology.  In the examples that you can see with this post one of our students has 3D Designed an original butterfly (which is part of our 3D Printed insect series).    

In each of these dioramas from the school pet day the student from our classroom have taken their design, their iPad and used the Tinkercad App to project the butterfly onto the different sets of the diorama.

This was a test - the student who used the butterfly had a timeframe to work with that was extremely short.   They spent under five minutes completing the task, and did not have time to edit either the pictures or the butterfly.    In the general progression from here both would be edited to alter their composition, depth, colour and details.

We will spend time early net term and be creating a series of challenges based around this process - if you want to view last years work you can click on the link to that work here.   During the next two weeks we have a range of projects that we will be highlighting.  Our students will be back on board in full from Monday 12th October 2026.

Laser Cut Art Frames: Pet Day 2026

Today is the final day of School at Auroa Primary School before we start our two week end of term break.   In Term Four, our last term for the year we have a whole lot of special events the first of which is on Thursday which is our annual Auroa School Pet Day.
 

We've detailed some of our art projects in the junior school and how we're using technology to enhance these - we wanted to look at the senior school and their use of our school laser cutter.

Our students have designed wooden frames which have been cut out on MDF.   The students have then decorated these frames using spray painting (to clarify that is supervised).   

There are a range available online for students to work with and there is also the potential for develop their own ideas.   Once these are completed and dried the students then use their iPads to take a digital image with a theme (which is usually farm based) and then mount the picture inside the frame.

Depending on the detail there is a slight variation with the printing time but we would confidently expect that none of the frames would take more than then minutes to complete.

The cost for the MDF is relatively cheap as the off cuts can be use for additional structures for dioramas and other purposes, not just as waste material which then doesn't have a purpose.

If you would like to see a summary of additional projects from our students using the laser cutter then you can click on the link here.

3D Printed Insect: Ant Example

 

Challenge: Student to complete and produce a unique and original design of an insect as a 3D Design, as an AR/VR projected creation and as a physical 3D Print.  Information report writing in term.

Background: This is the end of term project for our students to work in conjunction with our term focus on insects to produce an example that will compliment the art display that will make up part of our Pet Day 2026.  We have produced and published a number of examples that have come in this project task from our classroom.  We spent time for our literacy (writing) looking at the characteristics of insects in the form of our information reports.   This gave students ideas of the different sections and the language used to accurately describe each section of the insect.   

Initial designs from the students were then tested for viability and the balance between realism and a workable 3D print was addressed - an example shown left is the legs in this ant, while they are deliberately blocky in this instance to ensure that they were robust enough to remain in place when printing was complete.

Resources used to complete this print; iPad, Tinkercad App (for AR/VR), Bambu P1P, Bambu PLA - Blue.

Level of Difficulty: Medium this design is going to be refined and reimagined and will require some additional adaption of this design.   It has the recognition factor that we are looking after for the project however aspects of it need to change.

Size: The body of the ant is 40mm long and the sections were 10mm high.   The ant is 20mm high and the antenna are a further 20mm high.

Cost/Price: This print used 6.7g of PLA to complete the print.   This meant that this print cost $0.13c to produce.

Timeframe: To complete the print the printer was operating for thirty three minutes.    This also included a six minute time for the P1P to warm up.

This is the example of the same project being AR/VR into a location to make it 'outstanding'.   In this example the ant has been 'super-sized' and place onto the school field.   The 'gian't ant also had the student adding a naming font behind the ant, which can be seen in the screenshot and is red.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students; As noted the ant needs further refinement.  The first pair of the legs need to be brought back into the abdomen of the ant.   There has been some parts of the face/mask of the ant that require more details.

3D Print School - #Tinkercadhunt 2026 Starting Edition

 

We've been posting online for a while now, if you've been following this blog for a while you will be aware that we now had our most prolific posting year ever as we are posting everyday for a calendar year - but we also starting posting on a semi-regular basis with our first printing from 2014 appearing here the following year.

Overtime we've shifted away a little bit from how this site was first envisaged as we now feature a range of material produced on our laser cutter, our sticker machine or virtual pinball or our amazing DDR Step Master machine.

What it has also allowed us to do is revisit some of the activities that have proven popular or successful with students in the past.   Last year we created a range of prints that we titled 'Tinkercadhunt' when we used the Tinkercad App, 

This year our Pet and Calf Day is taking place in the first week of next term, we are about to break for a two week holiday and when we return in the first week we will be holding that special event.

For the different art tasks one of which is the diorama.  In these instances the backgrounds can be used for Tinkercad Projection.   If you look closely at the photographs that are shown with this post you should be able to recognise one of the original insects that our students have been working on.

In these first steps the nine year old student who has been working on this task has had a pre-arranged figure and had to work it into a range of backgrounds without the benefits of being able to colour match or adapt design to camouflage it amongst a colour matched background.

Typically when projecting onto a surface with AR/VR tends not to work too well when height is involved.   In this instance left the insect can clearly be seen in a position that defies gravity but again this is the student experimenting with a range of backgrounds at short notice and matching the background to the object (which is in this case a AR/VR student generated insect ant.

There will be significant amounts of media related to this project and an updated slideshow to follow.

All these examples were completed independently by a nine year old student within a ten minute timeframe visiting the classroom where the dioramas were on display.

3D Printed Stick Insect: Development

 

Challenge: To use students 3D Design CAD skills to develop a 3D Printed insect suitable for display with Pet Day Art for our school.

Background: This print has been described over the last few days in terms of process and goals - this is an example of a student adjusting their print to be successful.   The two versions of the print are shown next to each other, before and after.   The dimensions of the head, thorax and abdomen are nearly identical - being 60mm long and having a diameter of 20mm.   The difference between the two however can be clearly seen in the legs.   In the original (in light blue) the student wanted to show the typical stick insect size legs and therefore had them somewhat correct although the diameter of them was only 2mm.   

The Bambu H2D and Bambu P1P are excellent machines (although we don't typically use a fine nozzle as we are looking at more printing in volume) however as you can see from the legs shown left the actual printing was too much for the machines as the prints did not survive the removal of the rafting.

The solution which came from the nine year old student when he saw the resulting print was to look at making larger more arched legs, that had a thicker diameter, which while increasing it only to 3mm significantly made a difference with the production of the piece.    As can be shown from the redesigned figure shown in the left photograph in dark blue the issues with the original print have now been resolved and are completed.

Resources used to complete this project: iPad, Tinkercad App, Bambu P1P, Bambu branded blue PLA.

Level of Difficulty: Medium, while its a pretty straight forward design the student has been working on it for some time and has revised it several times to get the balance right between having the recognition factor, being able to represent the insect and have some additional features.

Size: The revised print measures 60mm from head to the end of the abdomen.   It has a body with a diameter of 5mm.   It currently stands 20mm high.    These dimensions are so that it can be placed in conjunction with the students tin-can art display for pet day and not overwhelm it.

Cost/Price: To produce this print the printer used 6g of PLA to complete.  This gave it a price point of $013c to print making it an extremely inexpensive print.

Timeframe: The print took twenty nine minutes to complete which included a six minute warm up time for the printer.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students:  There is still potential for additional features that could be added or extra design details that could be added (for instance the face of the stick insect is still a little cartoon like).    The feet also while now reinforced could have some more detail particularly at their base.

3D Printed Display Butterfly

 

Challenge: For students to produce a unique and original design of an insect to work in conjunction with an art display (for our calf day).

Background: As per the description that was posted about this yesterday and detailed our students creations focussing on the idea of an insect.

One of the key design features that are available via Tinkercad is the wings.   This pair of wings is accessible from the main menu.  For most students including out eight and nine year olds it is a very easy move from this design to start adding details and features that further develop the features.  We also have a somewhat limited timeframe with this activity.  We were looking for students to complete the activity in the region of thirty minutes to make designs such as this one available for the first printing run to allow us to have a series of printed examples to show the class.   We also wanted to ensure that the students had an opportunity to use Tinkercads AR/VR function.

When printed as shown left some of the details from the design were able to more distinct.  The six different spikes that were included for texture at the base of the wings was able to survive the printing process.    

Resources used to complete this print: Chat GPT sheet, Tinkercad App, Bambu PLA (blue), Bambu H2D Printer

Level of Difficulty: Medium - by using the wings as the basis for the design the students were able to complete it quickly, there is more details and additions to be added the intention was to produce a physical print that could be reflected on in a physical sense.

Size:  The print is 90mm across from tip to tip of the wings and 100mm tall in length.   The width of the wings is 5mm and the thorax and the abdomen are slightly thicker although smaller.  The print was completed with rafting with was located underneath the wings which created the 'bow' or bend in them which is visible.

Cost/Price: To complete this print the printer used 20g of PLA.   This has a price point of $0.40c.

Timeframe:  To complete this print the printer was operating on the standard default settings and was operating for one hour and forty minutes.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students:  When discussing butterflies one of the key features that we have talked about with students is the symmetry.  In this example here while the student has attempted to introduce some to this design it is not symmetrical and for it to be correct it needs some slight adjustments.   The colour that has been used here is a base colour, spray painting and decoration is a strong idea, using potentially glitter and also spray paints and other tools to enhance its presentation.

The six threads/spikes at the put of the wings are in position and remaining in place however they are very fragile and must have minimal handling for them to remain.   Also the students need to consider how to display this piece with a static tin car - such as a stick or prop and how this might look and how it could successfully be supported.