3D Printed Amazon River Dolphin Animal and Project

Challenge: Focus on a unique animal for Market Day to extend a student who has shown creativity and innovation.  

Background: As mentioned with the previous posts that are forming the majority of the present content we have a major school event next week - our School Market Day.

In the current classroom for Y3/4 we have a number of students who need some extension and one of the students has interests across a range of topics.   One aspect where the 3D Printing has proven to be really positive is in allowing it to create an animal that can be highlighted and featured that perhaps is not shown a huge amount of coverage or details for a variety of reasons.   The student in question wanted to highlight an Amazonian River Dolphin which is a creature that he has an interest in.   

The student spent a considerable amount of time further researching the animal and getting the dimensions right.  He opted for a cartoon approach to highlight some of the features of the animal as opposed to having dimensions that were correct (an example is the teeth that are prominent on the bill).

The student looked at ways to extend himself further by adding some additional sources of creativity to his work.

He used logos created by external sites like Brand Crowd and Logo Maker.   He created his own QR Code by using QRstuff.com and finally as he's been producing impressive and creative work using Pixton he was able to produce a comic based around the creature with additional information 

Level of Difficulty: Low - we wanted to allow an easy completion of the design, hence allowing the student to use 'scribble' to get the point of the animal across, however there were many elements that were working in conjunction with the design as mentioned above.   While this didn't add to the difficulty as such it meant that there was additional work for the student to extend themselves.

Size: 130mm long, 80mm high and 10mm thick or wide.   The purpose of the print at this stage is to act as a bag tag or a keyring so this would be the recommended dimensions for this kind of print.

Timeframe: Three and a half hours on standard (15% infill) print using our favourite Snapmaker Printer.   There is potential for variation of printing for this design and idea and it is expected to be adjusted accordingly.

What we would do differently/next steps for students: We have an obvious next step here, turning what is a static print into a connected print with a ball and socket joint to create a flexi-animal. We have students who are Y3 and Y4 however these have unpacked this learning over the course of the year and are well versed at creating these prints.   The student has decided in the short term to focus on the Market Day as it is next week - and wants to develop these prints further after this point.