3D Printed Stationary Holder: Junior Example

Challenge: To produce a unique stationary holder using basic Tinkercad shapes by a junior.

Background: This student is an ESOL student who has limited 3D Printing experience.   The student was able to do so by using the basic shapes to make an elephant.   He was able to create the shape and details and create a cartoon like shape.   The design was quite robust, which brought some humour into its creation.     

We talked to the student about making it to the correct scale but he was more than happy with how it developed and the features of it.

This was the students first design, it was a somewhat original design and it goes without saying that he was thrilled with how it develops and the details that went into it.

Level of Difficulty: Medium - the students design could have had additional features (see below) or been more to scale (see below) but he also wanted to make something fun that was not necessarily correct.

Size: The dimensions of the print were quite large, although this was deliberate from the student.  It measured 150mm long, was 100mm wide and had quite a girth to it.   The student could have addressed this but as it was his first original print he was happy with this, although the print time was quite long.

Timeframe: Twenty hours.   While this was quite long and conceivably could have been reduced this student was very much interested in having a cartoon version that was recognisable and fun.  This was very much inspired by the previous Dinosaur wearing a top hat print that was featured earlier on this blog.

Prior to there being decoration or an attempt to colour it the student made the decision to apply a PicCollage filter to the design.   This produced the image shown on the left.  The student was able to take this image and apply it with a 'Festive Filter' from the Magic Camera option on PicCollage.   

This not only gave the student design ideas it also allowed him to think about its presentation.

What we would do differently/next steps for students: The student was thrilled with the result, particularly after he had painted it.    There were some considerations - the scale of the figure (such as making the ears correct or researching their uses) there was no tail with this design. the student hadn't really considered it.    The size of the trunk was not relevant to the scale of the design, or were some of the parts of the design (such as the eyes) however the student himself didn't and wouldn't want to change anything about the design.  Finally the stationary holder had limited storage and this was specific to an eraser - if the student had inserted smaller holes then potentially something else could have been created, such as pencil storage.