3D Printed IRB Boats

Challenge: To produce an IRB Boat for a special event.

Background: The local Surf Life Saving Club was holding a significant milestone event (a hundred years since the club was founded).  For the event the club were looking at featuring something that was unique and related to the club that could be part of the celebrations.  The solution to this was for a 3D Printed IRB (inflatable rescue boat).    ideally we would have looked at creating something unique for the situation however given the time constraints and the need to produce a semi-significant numbers of the print we went searching online for a pre-created version that we could either adapt or use.   

We have spoken before about using Thingiverse as a location to find detailed prints that have already been created and again in this instance the presence of such a print was located on the site, which we were able to access and then use.   

Once it had been selected and located we looked at detailed presentation but again based on the timeframe that we were looking at and the scales of units that we needed to get a decision was made to remove the rafting from the design and spray paint it with a single colour (orange) from a spray can.    The piece was produced in four hours with minimum rafting (the only amount was the single piece shown above in the top photograph).

The final issue was the ability to make the print have some kind of unique relation to the event.  In this case we made the decision to combine the 3D Print with another machine that our students have access to at our school, in this case it was a Versa Studio  Sign Maker ( Bn-20).   This machine allows our students to take files and produce stickers with it.

The design shown in the photograph on the left is the stickers with the club emblem and initials, the date of the event.   These are going to be put onto the side of the IBB boats where the club markers are for the actual boats, therefore making them unique for the event.