3D Printed: Pencil Sharpener Holder Challenge

 

Challenge: To produce an original 3D Printed design that would be suitable to hold a pencil sharpener.  Student is restricted to create an original design from scratch and not use an existing or pre-made print.

Background: We have attempted variations of this challenge before, where the students have been tasked with taking an object and building it into a 3D Print.  You can see examples of this here on our blog.

You can also see a version of this design which incorporates a VR/AR version and one that has various filters applied.

This design came out of the process while this student is a student from the junior school this student has proven consistently to be someone who has grasped the concepts and ideas of 3D Printing and 3D Printed designs utilising a variety of techniques and excelled with her ability.

The scale of this print is larger than some of the smaller concept ideas of this version are smaller than a students finger.

The 'Dog' themed design was an original for the student.

Level of Difficulty: High - there are a number of component pieces that need to work in order for this print to be considered a success.  The legs need to balance, the tail needs to be feasible and the facial features of the dog are particularly important.  While importing many of these aspects would have been possible such as previous examples here, in this example we wanted the student to design them for herself to ensure that they were unique and she pushed herself with the design concept and idea.

Size: The print measures 140mm in length, was 50mm wide for the majority of the base and 80mm wide with the ears.   The design was 40mm high for most of it.  While the dimensions of this print is rather large it was intended to be this way.

Timeframe: This print took four and half hours.  Given the dimensions that were expressed above there was little that we would do to reduce or increase this time.  There was limited 'rafting' that took place at the base of the design.

What we would do differently/next steps for the student:

The student is happy with the overall design, aspects like the tail but she felt that the details in the face, which is conceivably the hardest to reliably create, she has stated that she wants to develop this particular aspect of the design further to make sure that it reflected a design that she was happy with.    Once this first print was created she felt she could have included additional details into the print to ensure that it would hold extra material such as a USB stick or a pencil.  Usually students are content with their prints, this is an example when a student wants to spend time and care to create a print that she is happy with.