3D Printed Original Articulated Animals - Highest Degree of Difficulty

Challenge: To create and successfully print an original articulated animal of challenging design.

Background: The student who has been responsible for creating the original articulated animals including the Kiwi, the Lion and other animals featured on this print was looking for ways to extend her designs and her animals, one of the animals she felt could make a striking design.     She choose an Octopus for this purpose.   The challenge was based around the legs of the Octopus and have them interact with the body of the Octopus.   This took several versions of this print to get correct so the student was happy with it.

Versions one and two featured legs that didn't have the width to support the print and were too fragile and needed to be replaced.   The third completed version the student was more happy with - this however left her thinking about other design aspects - one was the length of the legs, the second was whether it was robust enough to allow it to be repeatedly handled.    Finally the use of the arms as they stand led the student to look into creating a hook for the Octopus so it might be easily hung from the roof and then sway in the wind.

Level of Difficulty: High - this was specifically to challenge this student who has shown a high degree of design, thinking - this was not for the faint heartened and nor was ever intended to be.   

Size: The main body of the Octopus was 60mm across and 45mm high.   The tentacles are currently 50mm long although as noted the student is examining options to develop this further.   

Timeframe: The final version of this print took three and a half hours, earlier versions which were not considered successful were one hour and two hours.   These resulted in the tentacles of the Octopus not being robust enough.   Even with a three hour print examining the eyelets of the tentacles they are looking considerably weak in locations.

What would we do differently/next steps for students: As noted the student has spent considerable time reworking this design at present and is continuing to refine and work on the design this student is showing an incredibly aptitude towards being creative and challenging themselves.    It is anticipated that she will rework this design again considerably.

However this is a student who is twelve years old working independently to an extremely high standard.