3D Printed Ladybird

 

Challenge: For a nine year old student to adapt and personalise a insect for 2026 Pet Day Art Display.

Background: This is another in the version of the insect challenge that was completed by our students in the final week of Term Three for 2026.   It is currently the school holidays but they're about to end and the students will be returning to school Monday to start working on our amazing term four projects.

This student had followed the process that we've described in detail previously.   This involved using our structured literacy to study the features of insects so that students knew what they needed to include in their design.   The student also researched Ladybird/Ladybugs and found and researched additional information about them (such as being able to identify them based on colour and the number of spots).

This is one of the projects and spots that has lost some of its recognition factor from its digital version (shown above) and the 3D printed versions shown left - this could be addressed by colour matching and using red as a base print colour.

Resources used to complete this print: iPad, Tinkercad App, Literacy Resources (for insect research), Bambu H2D, Bambu 'bronze' regular PLA.

Size: The print measures 30mm at the front is 40mm long and is 20mm high.  With these dimensions the print is still considerably larger than actual size, but the intention was to show off the students design skills.

Cost: To complete the print the project used 12g of PLA to print.   This had no rafting on the object and as a result the project had a price point of $0.23c to complete.

Timeframe: To complete this print the printer was operating for 31 minutes to print the insect and six minutes to warm up for a total of 37 minutes.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students:    The spots of the print which are clearly visible in the digital version were not large enough to ensure that they were printed in the physical version, so these would need to have an expanded size so that they would be able to be visible.   Obviously the printing of the object and the colour matching is extremely important to ensure that it had heightened recognition factor.

Kaibot Robot Storage: Prototype

 

Challenge: To produce an original storage solution to house a Kaibot.    The storage needs to include space for the robot, and space for challenge cards above the storage.   The storage needs to personalised for another school and classroom.

Background: We are always looking for ways to help and spread projects to other schools and classrooms.  As an Apple Distinguished School we are also looking for other schools in the network to help.  The recent NZAIMS Tournament in Tauranga for Y7/8 was another example of this.   Normally after each game it is customary to sometimes offer a gift to the other team that were playing, in this case we presented the other team with glow-in-the-dark 3D Printing Badges and Keyrings.

In this example the Kaibot Robot needed to have potential storage.  The task was presented to all of the students in the classroom with a prompt using Chat GPT (as shown left).   The prompt created an image and details for the project which was then pushed out to the students via Seesaw.   The students were tasked with creating a design and were then tasked to AR/VR the created storage into the classroom setting to check on its viability.   You can see the design projection in the first photograph in this post.   When we then went through the selections from the classroom it was decided to move forward to a single physical print - which is detailed below.  Each student (from our class of twenty five eight and nine year olds) was allowed to buddy work with another individual or to work by themselves to complete the project and at this stage the publishing was restricted to the virtual completed tasks.

This allowed the students to review their designs, share them with others and then look and consider adaptions that might need to be made.   It also allowed the publishing of each students example via their Seesaw portfolio.    The teacher then made a decision about the number of prints that might be completed moving forward as the dimensions of the print were significant and realistically printing an entire class run of these objects would take time.

Resources used to complete this print: iPad, Tinkercad App, Chat GPT, Kaibot Website, Bambu P1S, Bambu Candy PLA (regular).

Size:   The print is 130mm across the front, is 100mm wide and is 80mm high.   This contrasts with the suggestions made in the ChatGPT prompt which suggested making a width of 300mm.   Although we don't physically have a Kaibot Robot one of the students has come up with the idea of printing a cube, or making a mock up of the same dimensions of the robot and use this as a design point.

The insert into the base of the storage is 100mm wide 30mm high and is 80mm deep.   The four storage bays at the top of the storage for the cards measures 25mm by 50mm.    Again the intention is to mock up a card of the correct dimensions and then apply it to this storage to see if it work.

Cost: The price point for producing this print is $3.47c on the basis of the print using 220g of PLA.   There was considerable rafting that was produced primarily by the insert where the robot is intended to be stored.   In theory this could be produced in different parts and then glued together however there would be questions about stability if this was the case.

Timeframe: To complete this print the Bambu P1S was operating for five hours and twenty minutes to complete the project.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: The students need to consider the dimensions of what has been produced relative to the dimensions of the actual robot.  While at times there is an assumption that something will fit without there being an ability to move the object around and have space between the walls or the top of the object.   There is a slight ramp here although it has a steep angle so the consideration should be if the robot can make this up.  This has been a challenge when producing housing for Sphero Robots as shown in this laser cut project.

As noted the next step is to consider the effectiveness of the physical design.   If it does not work in conjunction with the robots how can we upscale or up-cycle this design? How can it be used for additional projects or converted for another purpose?

3D Printed Insect: Cartoon Bee

 

Challenge:   To create or modify an insect

Background: As stated we have one of our school events coming up, our 2026 Pet Day.   Students who were confident with their designs were able to create a range of insects from scratch.

Some of the students were a little less confident and in those cases we encouraged students to look at modifying or changing existing designs.   This bee has been featured on this blog before, as it was part of a previous challenge from November 2025 based around the theme of 'Bee's'.

In this instance the student wanted to experiment with it, make an attempt to personalise it and see if it would fit the design brief.   It should be noted from its design the legs of the bee are not featured and the bee is itself upright - with clear cartoon features.

Resources used to complete this print: iPad, Tinkercad App, Bambu P1S, Bambu Pink PLA.

Size: The print measures 70mm across at the base and is 50mm high.   The base has a diameter of 40mm.

Cost: The print used 17g of PLA filament to complete the print (there was some support to assist the wings).   This had a price point of $0.34 for the printing.

Timeframe: To complete the print the print took 51 minutes to complete the print.   This consisted of the standard six minute warm up time and forty four minutes of printing of the actual object.

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

As can be seen from the image shown left the student wanted to personalise the design by inserting her name into the base of the design.   This proved a little more tricky than the student anticipated as the design had a round shape and the lettering needed to be bent to fit in with the base.    The student obviously designed the object with the high recognition factor of the bees and therefore colour matching would be better served with this print, having it as a base of black or yellow and then applying the additional colour as spray painting to create the designed colour.

3D Printed Cart Holders - Bambu Labs

 

We are always looking for examples of resources that could potentially be made, created or designed for the classroom or students.

Recently one of our wonderful teachers was printing a set of card holders, while they were designed to hold the specific cards to a game they also could have a great potential in the classroom as a resource.

We have explained that we made the decision to change our printers to Bambu Labs/Bambu printers during 2025 replacing previous brands.    We are incredibly lucky to have three machines to run at our school.   Bambu Printers come with an extensive online data base of pre-made resources, pages and literally hundreds of designs about many topics.

In this instance these as standard card holders - they measure 90mm by 65mm and are 17mm high.   Crucially and this again demonstrates the powers of the machines the boxes have a width of 1nm and was produced without any support or waste plastic.

In a classroom environment it would be easily possible to personalise these boxes by including a name or a description on the outside of the box.    These boxes took five hours to print - however this included the printing of three boxes and three inserts.   This used  110g of PLA to complete the print and had a price point of $2.20c.

There are a number of students who play various card games here at school, and again the clear potential here is for this design to be used as a stepping point or an idea to encourage students with their own designs using part of this as a starting point.

3D Printing 2026: Lore Revision (Part Two)

 

This is the part two of our revision posts about the concepts the idea was to have 'discussion points' or thinking points about what is potential with 3D Printing and design tech - it was originally conceived as a couple of potential challenges as sometimes there are barriers either real or imagined that form the basis of 3D Printing.  These are only ideas or observations rather than hard opinions!

#5 The Teacher is aware of 3D Printing, but doesn't need to be an expert. (originally published in January).  This idea was based around the concept of the students being the best individuals to design and push the technology.   Evaluation: Successful - to date and its only been over ten years but there has yet to be a post from this teacher on this site.

#6 You don't need every PLA to complete your designs.   (originally published in February 2026).   This idea was based around the concept of keeping things simple with the printing and then doing things like spray painting or adding additional aspects to your print (like combing printing with laser cutting or adding LED).  It again revisits the idea or concept of potentially not using a 3D Printer as the end point for a project and instead considering adding additional aspects or details from a variety of technology.   Evaluation: Successful.

#7 Engage as much as possible with your local community - we try as much as possible to push examples out into the community either with other schools or other businesses and want to try and get as many people as possible aware of and using our technology.    There are examples of this all over our blog based around other schools we have produced work and projects for the community or other schools.

Evaluation: Successful.

#8 You don't need to be an engineer to 3D Print.    This was based on the technology that exists and not having to constantly repair the 3D Printers.    As a note its not something that has been achieved.  We run our three printers on a nearly daily basis, and why they are much more reliable than the past (its been over ten years, in the "old days" some of the printers needed to be rebuilt!) there are still issues from time to time.  We are very lucky to have a staff member who has an engineering background who loves to repair machines (which is not me) and I am aware of various schools having parents who undertake this role, if this wasn't the case it would be a potential issue as if a machine needed repair then that could be a barrier.  Our Bambu machines have require two part replacements in the last year.   Both of these were able to be completed on site by staff.    Evaluation: Not successful and something to be careful of.

Holiday Break: October 2026

For those of you who are unfamiliar with our location, we are located in rural New Zealand at the wonderful Auroa, South Taranaki.   We have great location, this photograph was taken today at lunchtime outside our school looking towards the maunga/mountain that dominates our landscape, Mount Taranaki.

Our students are currently on the second week of their two week break between terms three and four of 2026.  We will be back posting next week with our regular contributions.

In the meantime we are looking at a range of posts from last term that our students were working on. 

As we've mentioned in a post last week as such we don't have a massive seasonal celebration at the moment, and our friends in the USA obviously have a large volume of material themed around celebrations later this month.

We are printing a small selection of material primarily to encourage 'thinking' and design about it from students with this theme, including some of our Pumpkin AR/VR work from the end of term.

This design was located online and has a diameter of 50mm.   It is 30mm high.  It has used 22g of PLA to complete the print and has a price point of $0.45c.

While it would not suit a candle due to it being PLA printed it would potentially benefit from having an LED light inside of it.    Free .STL files such as this one are available in significant numbers and can be easily accessed for printing purposes.   We usually print a small number of such items where appropriate and ask students to consider or think about them.

3D Printing 2026: Lore Revision (Part One)

During the course of the year we've had a series of 'discussion' posts or focus challenges based around some thinking about the application of 3D Printing at our school and how it might be applied to other educational environment.

#1 You don't need more than one printer at your school to print your projects: (originally published in December 2025).   Evaluation: Not successful - we were attempting to complete all our prints on one machine this year however we have been switching between three machines depending on what has been available or what needed to be completed.   We had times when the Bambu H2D needed to have a nozzle replacement as a result of use, which meant we had to use of P1S to complete projects at that time.  Blog Tag to search for further information: Bambu H2D, Bambu P1S.

#2 All your 3D Print Projects don't need to end in a physical print. (originally published in January) Evaluation: Successful.   By using Tinkercad as a design tool with our iPads we have continued to follow a process to create and produce a digital outcome first and foremost before we make a physical print.  There are significant examples of this process and output on this blog for nearly every project that our students have completed and entire slideshows of summary work dedicated to this process.   Blog Tag to search for further information: AR/VR, Tinkercad AR/VR.

#3 Enhancing your projects by using non-standard PLA for different outputs. (originally published in January).   Evaluation: Successful.   We have used a range of filament this year again including a considerable amount of Bambu branded glow-in-the-dark and super glow-in-the-dark filaments.    Blog Tag to search for further information: glow-in-the-dark.

#4 Juniors can create! (originally published in January 2026) We wanted to challenge the notion that 3D Printing, CAD Design and creation is a senior school activity.   We have a classroom of Y4 students which is the core of nearly every print produced and showcased on this blog.   Evaluation: Successful. Blog Tag to search for further information: Anything that is not tagged Y7/8 is 'junior'.

This is part one of two.