Junior Engineering Challenge: Table Legs Caps

Challenge: To solve an engineering problem - how to make accurate table leg caps for a home made table.

Background: This was set for a group of student who are working on this project collectively - it is a good practical task that will have a clear outcome that will end up in use moving forward.

Students have had to consider ensuring that the completed design is suitable to work with a specific table and can protect the legs of the table from interacting with the (concrete) floor.  As a laser cutter is going to be mounted on the table the stability of the table.

On a side note this teacher has seen chair legs to raise a piece of furniture for a child with a disability.   The chair legs need to be adaptable for height, need to be balanced and stable - and in some cases to a specific height: this project, this idea, this media and the would work exactly the same way.

Students worked to use Tinkercad to complete the design and refine it based around the table which it is working in conjunction with.   They were seven and eight year olds designing independently using Tinkercad for the design and creation.

Level of Difficulty: Medium - this is a basic design but is has required precision otherwise it won't meet its purpose.  The students have refined the design already several times to ensure that it fits perfectly.

Size: The present prototype is 130mm long 110mm wide and has a 5mm base.  The centrepiece of the design is a further 10mm high.   This will need to be extremely snug around the feet of the table to ensure that it works as intended.   

Cost/Price: The print as it stands is using 44g of PLA filament and this has a cost price of $1.12.

Timeframe: Using the regular (default) settings for a Bambu H2D Machine this print took exactly one hour to complete.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: The students are going to refine the design with the teacher concerned to ensure that they meet the brief successfully.

2026 Classroom Technology Project: The Kitchen

 

Last year we had a significant design project which we detailed during the course of the year based around a Dolls House.  This was detailed extensively and you can view the project in its entirety here.

When looking around various events and community fundraisers occasionally an object can be located which has potential to engage the students in the process of making it or adapting using the technology that we have at our school such as our 3D Printers, Laser Cutter or Sticker Machine.

This item shown left was located today.  It cost the princely sum of $10.00 to purchase it.   It is a students kitchen and is 1.1m long, 1.1m high and 0.5m wide.   The condition of the object overall could be described as fair.

On first inspection the wood for the base of the design is not warped, damaged or needing replacing.   The sink is obviously missing, however this could be replaced as a 3D Print.   The panels all could respond really well to be cleaned and have a decal sheet from the sticker machine applied to them.  This would really make the whole unit pop.

All the doors on all of the cupboards, the oven and fridge are all functioning really well.   Students could potentially create items for a number of these places using some of our technology.   It is conceivable with a bit of work that students could bring this back to near as good as new and potentially use it as a gift to our junior school or as a fundraiser as part of the school events later in the year.

First and foremost we need to get this item to the students so they can inspect it, start to formulate some plans and look at potential designs and resourcing that we can use to complete the project.

Lore #7 - Engage with Your Printing with the Community

This is another in the series of 'challenges' or 'ideas to consider' related to 3D Printing.   They are just opinions and suggestions and would be quite happy to be proven wrong about some of them.  In the previous posts about this topic on this blog we have said:

#1 You don't have to have more than one printer at your school to successfully print

#2 You don't need to ultimately print all of your 3D Printing projects

#3 Printing using non-standard filaments, like glow-in-the-dark is simple

#4 Juniors can design, create and build prints just as well as seniors

#5 The teacher should probably be aware but doesn't need to be an expert

#6 You don't need every kind of PLA to use

We try and take every opportunity to engage with the community with the technology that we have at our school.

In the past we went and printed complementary key rings (oversized) for local businesses in the community) and gave them to local shops - and yes there are still in use years later! 

We are also from a strong rural community with significant farming and engineering works in the area.  We personally went to the local engineering workshop and dropped off a couple of samples of some of the work that was capable of producing using the 3D printer.  The intention in this case was to give the engineers something physical that they could examine but also hopefully plant a seed that in the future if they needed a specific part then they could look to the school to potentially produce it.

The post above shows something one of our amazing staff have been working on.  The example in black is a piece of equipment that connects to the tubing and is screwed into place.   The yellow PLA print is the copy of the original which is able to reproduce perfectly the size of the original and once the thread has been mastered the original will be replicated.   We will continue look for opportunities for our students to be involved in hands on problem solving approaches that they can use the technology to resolve.

3D Printed Bottle Lid and an Engineering Challenge

 

This is the companion print from the bottle exemplar that one of the students has been working on in their own time.   Having spent a crash course on design and Tinkercad in the past four weeks (in the afternoon)

Shaping of the matching lid to pair with the bottle was relatively easy, although the student got the size perfect by putting a hole into the top and then using Tinkercad to remove the hole, make it into a solid object and then use this as the basis for their design.

The challenge is coming the shape of the 'thread' that is on the inside of the bottle top and prominent on the top of the bottle.   Both of these elements need to work in conjunction with each other to allow the bottle to seal.  At present the lid sits on the top perfectly.

However the lid is sitting in place, rather than being screwed down.   The bottle itself is eye catching but the student need to identify a way to solve this engineering challenge.

The lid in its current form has a 40mm and 45mm version, and is currently using 11g of filament.   It is costing $0.28 to print and taking sixty seven minutes to complete the print.

The student responsible for this design is an eight year old working independently in their own time to complete the project.

AR/VR Onto a Pre-made Background

The backdrop featured left and detailed in a previous post as possible the best 'value' for money purchase for a classroom ever has been put to use via Tinkercad, the Tinkercad App and its ability to project images using the AR/VR button.
 

Tinkercad has a number of pre generated object available from the main interface, including several which the students identified as suitable for projection in the scene shown.

One of the challenges for the students was the fact that the project image tends to be quite bright and can stand out.   When the background is bright and has a strong image like it did last year when we had the Christmas Festive Background Challenge in this instance the students needed to consider what elements that they could use to change the setting.

The crocodile proved to be a popular choice - which in some cases was multiplied several times.

This allowed the students to experiment with the placing and composition.   This will be uploaded to Facebook and a number of examples will be shown.

3D Printed Bottle - Exemplar

 

Challenge: For a student to create a unique and individualised project.

Background: As detailed in a previous AR/VR and design task was the challenge for students to create something unique - this meets the criteria of printing an outstanding design and this student wanted to make a copy of a bottle.

He based his design on a bottle that is available as a design from the main Tinkercad interface.   He wanted to replicate the design using the different shapes and tools that are freely available and did so using his iPad and the Tinkercad App.

There was a considerable amount of design associated with the creation - and he wanted to ensure that it was a viable print, which was completed once he had shown that he had the dimensions mastered (using the 'measure' tool) and could justify how it might be used (which of course is helped by the fact that the PLA is waterproof and when printed as a solid shape is water tight.    The students next step is that he wants to develop his skills further and work on a lid, with thread that can be used to screw and tighten on to the bottle.

Level of Difficulty: High - while this is a eight year old he has spent considerable time applying his design skills to create this bottle and has done so from scratch constantly revising, working on and developing his project over several days (which he has done in his own time).   The 'unlocking' or successful completion of the lid will prove challenging but the student is determined to complete it.

Size: This is significant print with significant dimensions.   It currently measures 210mm high and is essentially 70mm wide.  It is narrower at the point of the lid where it is 30mm across.   

Cost/Price: Using the Bambu studios information relating to this print we can determine that to print this unit, including the 'rafting', the support PLA that it took 200g of filament.   This is a significant amount.   The cost associated with this print is $4.91.   This is considered something of a one one based on these dimensions.

Timeframe: The print took considerable time to complete being printed over five and a half hours.   It was completed on the Bambu H2D and we would not consider completing it on any of other machines due to the finish and detail required.

What we would do differently/next steps for the students: 

We followed through with the printing of this project based on the creation by the student and their input outside of the classroom process.   The print dimensions, cost price etc means that this is not feasible for a classroom project (although of course could potentially be in the right circumstances).   The opportunity to personalise the print was clearly there as was the potential to use it in conjunction with something like the Roland Versa Sign Maker machine.

The lid is potentially the most challenging part of the entire process, identifying and successfully executing this is very challenging but the student appears to be relishing the opportunity presented by the design challenge.

Summary of Half Way Point: Term One 2026

 

Students have completed the introductory task which was the creation of a name badge/plate.   This was detailed on the blog here.   This print them morphed into a series of prints based around the development of a generic stencil and then a stencil which was personalised for the students.   You can view all of these posts by clicking on the links above.

These posts were completed by seven and eight year students from our rural school in New Zealand using Tinkercad and their iPads.

We have had students refining their designs based around the repairing of a piece of play furniture, which in this case in a barn/farm set.

While it is not immediately obvious if you haven't seen a post before about this item the door shown left, in white has been created by a student and then using the Tinkercad App and the apps AR/VR feature the students have 'projected' the door into place to see how it visually looks - there is no 3D Printing of the part at this stage, the students are designing and crafting thier ideas and applying them in a virtual sense.   Eventually the doors will be printed and an attempt will be made to complete the play set by developing a solution to the roof which will need to be produced in several stages.  You can view examples of this work throughout this blog by using the search bar top right or clicking on examples here.

We have spent considerable time exploring the AR/VR design aspect of Tinkercad.   Students have made a range of creations and used the pre-made items and also used original designs such as the donut shown left which was then projected into a students lunchbox.    When this was completed we have taken the adapted image and combined it with another level of AR/VR by running it through one of a number of Pic Collage filters that are available via that App.

Our students do not have time to allocate to this other than our 'design' or 'investigate' time in the classroom which is usually in the afternoon.