3D Printed Challenge: School Micro Paperclip

 

Challenge: Our School Principal set a challenge to our students, to include in our school information pack for enrolments a paper clip or way to group four regular sheets of paper.

Background: This challenge was set by our school Principal at relative short notice, however it was one of the challenges that our students took to with speed and a design challenge that was impressive.

The brief was simple - for a paper clip or a way to puncture paper to group it together.     Our students had a class shared brief and were instructed to complete the design as quickly as possible - so we could start running prototypes and initial prints.

Tinkercad and the class page was of course the starting point for our students.   The design had two

particular points, 

The first is that the name of our school must be included in the design, Auroa School.   The second is that the design must be able to be hold the paper together securely.

One of the most fantastic aspects of design from Tinkercad is that there is a range of templates available for easy design that students can adapt.  In this case, without prompting a number of students located the 'simple bookmark' which was available via a search.   This design was the basis for the first two prints shown above left which were then developed in under three minutes or so by the students.

The next stage of the design is to challenge the students to develop their ideas and develop their creations that are unique.   An example is the t-shirt shown below.   The idea from the student is to copy the student uniform at school, and have a ability to lock the two items together forming the way to keep the paper in place.  The student is looking at ways to test the locking mechanism prior to printing.

Size: Both of the paperclips shown in the photo were 40mm across and 100mm and 120mm long.  The base of the design, which was the bookmark is only 3mm thick, this allowed it to be flexible but also have some strength.   The gold design had a head that was 10mm thick, the pink design which was the glow-in-the-dark filament was 5mm thick at the top of the design.  

Timeframe: Both of the designs took forty minutes to print.  Ideal for a group or class project when during the course of the next few days as many designs as possible can be completed.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students:   The next steps for the students to is to complete their designs, share them with the classroom and use this to encourage the designs from the other students.   Each student will essentially create their own individual bookmark, they will be presented to the Principal who will choose the design that best meets the intended brief, which we will duplicate copy, and each student will receive their own bookmark.