Revisiting Stencils from 2025

 

Challenge: For students to produce an original stencil that could be used for an art design.

Background: We attempted this in November 2025 and it proved to be a popular challenge for the students.  At the time we had a number of other projects that were taking place and it was always going to be something to revise at a later date.

The idea was relatively straight forward.   By using the Tinkercad main interface available via the program (or the app) students were able to locate the 'hole' icon.   This allows students to pull a hole though a solid shape.  In this case it creates a stencil effect.   The biggest issue was the thickness of the potential stencil.   In the case shown above the Bambu H2D is able to produce a stencil that is 1mm thick - which allows a minimum print time for the project but has enough strength that it can be used as a functional stencil.

Not all of the stencil shapes were successful - the house which can be viewed on the Tinkercad screenshot which is in the bottom left did not have the correct linking on the inside of the print so when the print was removed from the printer this part of the print did not survive the process (and created the shape which you can see bottom right in the photograph).   

The student is now going to refine the design, think about what other shapes might be able to be created, including some specific challenges (see below).

Level of Difficulty: This is low as it is another introductory task.   The concept or key idea to use with the challenge is the hole tool.   This can be mastered easily by the (seven and eight year old students) and then applied to their general designs.    The shapes can be sourced from the Tinkercad library, or in the case of the house the students can use the 'scribble' command to create unique designs.

Size: The key element to the design is its width or thickness which in this case is 1mm.  The print was 150mm long and 86mm wide or tall.   To aide in the printing time the stencil shapes are essentially hollow so that part of the plate/design does not print.

Cost/Price: To complete this stencil used 12g of filament.   Using the Bambu Lab Studio information we can determine that the cost of this print was $0.30c.  A word of caution - this was completed using the Bambu H2D it might be beyond the capability of some 3D printers to complete the details.

Timeframe: The print took 25 minutes to print making it one of the shortest prints that we would be completing - of course this is primarily due to the width of the print.   It makes it a potential task to complete with a class of students.

What we do next/Next steps for the students: The key issue with a print like this in the early stage is the detail from the students.   They are able to complete this task easily but it is the unique nature of the task where the potential lies.   Students could use the scribble command and create a specific design - in this instance the student did not use a 'font' but could have easily done so to create their name, or the name of their school as the centrepiece.   It is also considering what patten the stencil might be used for, while obviously some kind of tessellation is easily achieved perhaps the student could have an art piece in mind prior to their Tinkercad design and they then complete it with this in mind.

This is a post that will be updated when further students have completed their designs.

You can see additional work based around this process and concept by clicking on the link here from November 2025 or a design involving spray painting from 2024.

2026: Using Tinkercad for AR/VR Building Design

 

We have posted extensively in the past about how we are increasingly using Tinkercad and the Tinkercad App to AR/VR students designs for the purpose of prototyping.

This means that prior to potential printing students can apply a design, consider it, rework and potentially then reflect and design - with 3D Printing being the final potential step.

We wrote last year after school finished that we had made a series of purchases for potential classroom projects - including the design shown left.

In this instance the students decided to start with potentially one of the basic designs - a door to work in conjunction with the structure.  Apart from a basic design  of the door the challenge for the student is to consider the design of a hinge.  There is a small bracket which is on the door frame on the right.  In the example shown left the student (who is eight years old) has used the app and then projected the image into the design to see if it 'looks right' and therefore can advance further with the design, make adjustments or reconsider their approach.   The key area of the design is the hinge and allowing the ability for the door to be open and closed.   Students are aware from completing the 'badge' process that the anticipated print time for this project is in the region of thirty minutes.

3D Printing Lore #6- Dont Underestimate the Students

 

3D Printing Lore #6- Don't Underestimate the Students

We are currently two days into the school year - after two brief sessions of students from our school using #Tinkercad to complete designing task students have been able to complete the following designs, which we have now printed.  In the case of our 2026 class the students are developing their work based around using their iPads, the App and then completing the designs themselves.

In both cases shown here the students have already produced these as individual projects - the teachers sole role with the project has been to print the projects.  Moving forward I will be looking for as many opportunities as possible to use provocations with the students and I look forward to watching their ideas develop.

Previously with regards to lore or challenges:

#1. You don't need more than a single printer to print in a school environment.

#2 You don't need to 3D Print all of your students 3D Printing projects

#3 3D Print using glow-i-the-dark or other filament is easy

#4 Juniors can 3D Print just as well as seniors

#5 The teacher is aware

3D Printing First Novice Print of 2026

 

Challenge: For an eight year old to produce their first independent project.

Background: As noted elsewhere on this blog, this is the first challenge for the students in the classroom.  All work described is being completed independently using just an iPad with no previous experience in the use of Tinkercad.

Level of Difficulty: Low - this is an introductory task for students completed in thirty minutes from start to finish by an eight year old who hasn't used Tinkercad before.

Size: The print measured 90mm across was 90mm high and 5mm wide.   It is made this size as it is intended for the student to use it as a bag tag.   If it was a key ring it would not be suitable.

Cost: This was completed on the Bambu H2D.  Using the Bambulab software we can determine that the print used 18g of filament to be produced and it had a projected cost of $0.44c.   Regular white PLA was used to complete this print.

Timeframe: The completed time for the print was 32 minutes.  It was part of a class set where we were realistically using the main school printer to print a set of fifteen projects over the course of two days.  It was intended to get a project completed by a student, get them excited and get them thinking about future possibilities.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the students: Nil - completed as hoped.  We used students who had experience from last year to use Tinkercad and also a Flipped video from this site.

3D Printing Week One in the Classroom

What happened in Week One of Auroa Primary School for 2026 in regards to Digital Design:

To complete work in the first week of school students used their iPads and accessed the Tinkercad website to log into their online design accounts, used the Tinkercad software and created their first designs.

Currently we have not used the Tinkercad app or completed any AR/VR work.

Cohort One: This is the new group of students to the classroom who have had no previous experience with using Tinkercad. They are eight year olds who are developing and exploring their use of Tinkercad for the first time this year. They have a regular iPad to create all of their designs. One of the students has access to their own 3D Printer however they are using it more for printing pre-made items rather than original design at this stage.

We were able to assess their efforts by using the Tinkercad Classroom Interface.   An effort was made to print as many of these initial designs as possible to give the students a physically created print to think about and have as an output.    As non of the prints were sized to take more than one hour (on the Bambu H2D) and there were 15 students in this group this was achievable.

Cohort Two: Students (eight years old) who used Tinkercad for one year.   These students had grasped many of the principals and ideas and used Tinkercad actively for some time.   For these students we allowed them to tutor or help the other students on the first day and on the second day start the rebuild of the toy farmhouse to replace the doors etc.   They were measuring, designing, checking and then problem solving to think about a hinge and how the door might be able to be swung open.  For the purpose of sizing the students used some examples of the name badges. We are hoping that this will lead to the sharing of ideas with the other group of students once they have completed designs. It is our intention to complete another seperate lesson next week for both groups before combing challenges from this point forward as all the students will have the fundamental design skills that are required to start working on projects. Next week we want to focus on the 'stencil' idea from last year as we want the students to master the concept of using 'hole' to insert and modify basic shapes.

3D Printing 101: Class Prints Cohort One

 

For the start of the school year we are aiming as quickly as possible to use our block of afternoon to introduce students to Tinkercad and begin the process of having the students develop their skills.

For the first challenges we have two distinct groups of students.   The first are the students who spent last year in the classroom and have worked with Tinkercad for a school year.

The other group of students are novices who have not used Tinkercad previously.   We are a 1:1 iPad ADS School - we are very fortunate that every student has an iPad.   The students have a class Tinkercad account and use it to design.    The first task should be very familiar to regular visitors of this blog - we typically call it 'badge' and you can of course use the search bar top right to locate many previous examples.

The core learning was done via the students utilising the 'experts' in the classroom and also the flipped video that we mentioned yesterday.   This tutorial video is the number visited page on this site - 

The intention is to up skill the students.   Once the task was completed we checked the criteria with the students prints.   We looked at the composition, the balance and the criteria.    Students needed to have their name on the design, a shape and a hole to create the purpose for the print.

We allocated thirty minutes for this time to include the design, and then reviewing the design in Tinkercad.   We did not use the AR/VR function of the design at this point but were able to rotate the students designs and creations.

The class currently consists of twenty students.   There are fifteen students in the cohort who are starting to design.    Each of the prints have a different completion time as the sizes vary but in the example shown left the print measures 90mm by 90mm and is 8mm wide.

In this version shown left the student opted to have their name sunk down into the design, instead of sticking out, this again is something of a design 'trick' of 3D Printing designs while the obvious design would be to pull the letters above the base line in this example as a design feature.   Once this was completed the second part of the challenge was to complete the process again for another person (so it could be assessed differently from the first) and include two additional features.   This had the students starting to understand the concept of using the shapes and design contained within Tinkercad.

3D Printed Mt Taranaki Progression

 

We have started using the print that we discussed yesterday as our first AR/VR task for the year.   We have detailed in the past how we have used this function of Tinkercad and the Tinkercad App to project images around our school - including making them supersized to show details and features that might otherwise not be noticed.

This is the 3D Print of our local Mountain that we are working through with our students.   We started discussing how we can develop this idea, this display and think about the features and how we might present it to our classroom and school.

The mountain is a hugely iconic local image that dominates the landscape and our community.   In the image shown below the model of the mountain being held in front of the mountain itself - the mountain is currently obscured by cloud cover - however we will repeat the process when the conditions are suitable. 

Already with discussions with the students some of the features of the mountain have come up as part of the physical model being available.

We are going to use the .stl file for all students to be able to produce an original AR/VR image of the mountain and project it around the school creating a visual display to start off the school year.

At the same time we are also undertaking our very first 3D Prints and original designs - we have spilt this into two distinct cohorts.   The first group of students have begun the process of working on the AR/VR and the functional repair of the 'Farm Building' that was purchased from a thrift shop which has a number of elements needing to be repair and replaced.

The second group of students is following a flipped video concept from 2019 - this is a fundamental skills starting with the use of Tinkercad where the students create a basic design.   This post here is amongst the most popular on this site.