3D Printed Beginners Task: Locket

Challenge: For students to personalise a locket.

Background: We have mentioned over many years now that the students from our school are essentially using Tinkercad for nearly all of our 3D Printed design.   We have looked in the past at switching to other programs etc but in terms of free design CAD software that will work with our iPads.  We also have a very young class of students - although the design process is still exceptional - one of our youngest students is proving the most adept at creation and she has just turned seven.

One thing that needs to be produced and considered is how you can use the printers to produce projects quickly that might be positive for a class of students.   This is where the range of talents of students need to be taken into account, and this was a quick example that utilised the Tinkercad creative library.   The locket shown left is a pre created design which the student concerned wanted to personalise, so with the design already made they then needed to include their name with it - with this complete and the design printed in a very short time the next thinking point, the next challenge was 'what could we do next?' what would be a use for something like this.   This started a variety of discussion relating to the size of the box and how it could be modified to store additional items.

Size: This measures 40mm across and 40mm high with a depth of 10mm for the entire print - the idea being it is something that could be massed produced easily with a minimum of student input.

Timeframe: One hour on standard settings.   The purpose of this print is to produce something that will get the students thinking about design and about making things that would be a step forward from this.

Level of Difficulty: Low - the key components of the design have already been completed, the student in terms of personalising it only needed to introduce the text of their name to the print, which was incredibly simple.   This was a single step process which then allowed the student to focus on the next steps.

Next Steps for the Student/What we would do Differently:

The mechanism for the locket to open and close fascinated some of the students and ideally we would like one or two to undertake to try and replicate it or reproduce it at some point in the future.   The entire process is designed to ensure that the student is successful easily and then starts thinking about the next steps that they might take with their production and working.