3D Printed: Custom Made Pieces for Pinball Table

At Auroa Primary School each year the students of the school compete in a virtual pinball competition.  The competition is created by staff at school and the students competed for the first three years, had their heats recorded and then AV staff at our school produced the final product.  You can view the footage of these finals at the Sonic Vision Studios Youtube page here.   For the past three years the competitions have been lives streamed on Youtube with the finals taking place during the course of a day, with live commentary at school.

The tables have all been custom made for the school - videos of the process can be located here.

The table for 2023 has just been released and includes elements of the table that have been 3D Printed.  The various hard material items for the school are involved in the entire process.  The cabinet has laser cut elements to it, while the decals for the outside of the machine have been printed on the school sticker printing machine (please note the laser cutter is an industrial sized one and the sticker machine is commercial).   

In the picture on the left showing the new table you can see that the white corners of the table have had custom built 3D Printed corners for the machine.  A full tutorial for the table will be released shortly.

This linked video is the first grand final from 2018, the 2022 grand final (which was streamed live) can be accessed here.   We have a connection to the staff member who has produced the material for this project and are able to connect you with them if you email us (myles.webb@gmail.com).

Y4 Extension - Pencil Sharpener Challenge Using Existing Designs

This challenge is a slight variation of the post from yesterday.   In yesterdays example the student concerned used the Tinkercad main interface to create from scratch a turtle design.  

In another design running at the same time from a different student who wanted to focus on using the existing library of animals from Tinkercad to then create a base/host for the pencil sharpener.  As the design was made available the student concentrated on adding the detail to include the mechanical part of the print.  This student wanted to include two pencil sharpeners hence the pair of bears that make up the design.

In the view shown above the first bear can clearly be shown to house the single pencil sharpener.  in the second view, shown left, the double pencil sharpener opening can be seen.  In the first example the entrance hole for the pencil sharpener is not located directly adjacent to the exit point.   The second matches however it needs to be tested with the pencil sharpener inserted.

Time for this print is currently at the four hour mark.  With some modification the print will be completed, however this will involve testing with the pencil sharpener and adjusting the print accordingly.

Y4 Extension Challenge: Pencil Sharpener Holder

Challenge: To produce an original 3D Design to hold a pencil sharpener.

Background: Its been a year in the classroom of using 3D Printers.  At the halfway point of the year we are looking to provide some extension challenges to the classroom, and particular students who have shown an aptitude to design.

This was a project that was first attempted in 2019 by a group of students.   This design was originally charged to a group of the students although the results were always requiring refinement.  Since then we have changed printers from Ultimakers to Snapmakers and the resulting prints have been significantly better.

The student working on this project is a Y4 student, so someone who is eight years old.  This is their first year of using a 3D Printer in the classroom.   This is an extension student who is achieving extremely well academically across all of the curriculum areas.   We instructed the students to create an original animal, but the animal needed to be able to house or have a pencil sharpener that could then be inserted or placed inside the animal so it would be functional.

The student worked around various designs and decided to identify Tinkercad.   They decided to use a 'turtle' themed design as they felt that they could replicate the key features using the basic shapes from the main Tinkercad interface.   The original design (shown top left) had a large insert for the pencil sharper however the student had not considered the exit of the pencil once sharpening was in progress or successfully identified, measured and placed the print to work in conjunction with the sharpener.

The refined version of the print, shown left included a reimagined housing for the sharpener and refined designs for the feet and face.

The student then also considered how to introduce an exit point for the pencil sharpeners waste.   This was devised by introducing a block into the back of the animal.  During printing this is filled by 'rafting' that is material that is designed to support the structure when it is printing to maintain its shape, which then can be broken or removed following the printing, when the print has set (the print effectively sets instantly).    The student was basing the design around the size of the pencil sharpener relative to the size of the turtle designed.

Level of Difficulty: Extreme.  This is not for the faint hearted.  We are anticipating that the student will revise this design again and again until they reach a completion that they are satisfied with and meets the brief.    This student has shown creativity and an eye for detail. 

Features like having an entry point and an exit point working in conjunction with a pencil sharpener are extremely challenging for older students in our experience and this is a relatively young student.

Timeframe: Five hours.   The dimensions have been dictated by the pencil sharpener and the desire to create an original creature/animal or design that matches with the housing potential.

Size:   The current design is measuring 100mm long 60mm wide and is 50mm high.   The insert for the pencil sharpener is 15mm by 30mm and is currently 40mm deep.

What we would do differently: This challenge has taken a couple of blocks of design and creation, the issue is now to refine what the student has made check that it works and makes the design brief and look at refining it in conjunction with the pencil sharpener.   

We are intending to keep all the models in the process to look at tracking the progression of the project to see what the student is going to develop with their ideas.   We would now be realistically at the testing phase as the student is happy with the design (although the turtle has a single eye if you look closely).

We are thinking that this will lead to more creativity and challenges for the student moving forward and as we are having another market day this year this finished version (when it is finished) may well be something that is original that we look to market.

Reimagined Student Name Tag

Challenge: Produce something unique to label items.

Background: The use of the 3D Printer to produce unique items that are student driven or student designed is and has always been one of the key strengths of the technology.   Nearly every student that has completed a 3D Printed design has started with the variation of a name tag/label as these designs typically are highly useable and functional.

Typically the students are able to design these within a few short minutes of using Tinkercad for the first time.  Since we started this blog (in 2015 no less) we have occasionally used other apps for design, however for educational and schooling purposes we have used Tinkercad almost exclusively for its versatility and dependability.  Its educational/classroom set up for the students has been extremely well developed.   In contrast we have changed 3D Printers machines once significantly since the start of this blog due to better machines clearly being available and we have not looked back.

Level of Difficulty: Medium/Low - students should be able to produce something like this independently using Tinkercad in a relative short space of time, there are a few elements with the design that make it a little bit more noticeable - the key feature would be the name being sunk into the design instead of  sticking out above the print - this means that the lettering would not fall off as experienced is the lettering had been inversed.

Size: 70mm long, 50mm across and 10mm thick.    This produced a versatile print that was robust and strong enough that there would be no concerns with its durability.

Timeframe: Ninety minutes.  Given that the dimensions listed above were what was required there would be no change to the printing time as no adjustment would be made to the print.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the students: Nil/None.   This print has designed and executed perfectly from the point of view of the student (who is a Y7 students, twelve years old) and the point of view of the classroom teacher (who is not myself, the student brought me the finish print and asked that this be printed as it was).

Further Tinkercad 'Scribble' Examples

Challenge: Junior students (Y3/4 - seven and eight year olds) to use the scribble icon from the main Tinkercad Interface to create a unique design. 

Background: As we are nearing the end of the class term in New Zealand and the school holidays are nearly upon us it has been a time to revisit some of the activities that we have completed during the past term (ten weeks) to see how the design of the students has evolved and see what can be produced.   Earlier in the term the students first experience with this produced some pleasing ideas, as detailed in the post on this blog.

In this case one of the students decided that they wanted to produce a tag for their items and use the 'scribble' icon from the main Tinkercad interface (shown left) to produce the print.

The student knew from previous experience with the icon that all of the elements of the name/writing needed to be linked.   There also needed to be a ring as part of the print that allowed it to be attached somehow.   Again this was located from the main interface.   The student concerned is a Y4 student whose first experiences of 3D Printing have taken place in the classroom during the past four months.

Level of Difficulty: Medium.  The student was confident with their design having attempted some basic 'scribble' designs before, the student was also directed to view some calligraphy so she could have some idea of flourishing font.  However the student was confident having worked successfully on a number of prints before.  She also opted to add a star to the design as shown left.

Size: 10mm thick, 70mm long and 30mm wide.   Given the dimensions of the print and what it was intended for (a small labelling object) it also needed to be robust enough that it would last while it was in use - therefore the width of the print was needed.

Timeframe: Two hours - this was realistic given the dimensions of what was required for the print.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the Students: Nil - the student was extremely pleased with how the print turned out and felt that it would work well for the purpose that it was intended for.