3D Printed: Non Printing Design and AR/VR

Challenge: Set by the Principal for the students (Juniors) to create a suitable prize giving award for students at school.

Background: This challenge was set by the Principal of our School, following up from the paperclip challenge from the previous week.   This challenge was detailed on this blog, which you can view by clicking on the link here.

The challenge was created by our Principal who wanted a miniature trophy to be created by the students.    For the end of year prize giving our students are awarded a number of trophies, the idea is for students to keep the miniature version as a permanent reminder while the larger version could therefore remain in possession of the school.   The specific brief for the students was to feature the name of the school, and also have suitable details that were authentic to the school.

We provided with students to complete this task a physical example - that was a trophy created on Bambu Printer specifically for the 2025 School Step Master Dance Machine Competition.  This allowed our students to compare their AR/VR designs with an original design so they could compare the designs viability and composition.

In this instance the dimensions of the prints will mean that not all students projects will be printed.   We are going to allow the Principal to judge the competition on the basis of the virtual design and then select three to five designs to undergo the printing process.    This allows the class of twenty five to be all involved in the printing process, to refine their designs, share their designs and then complete the process.

We have documented a slideshow of ideas based around the use of projects that involve creation and design which is located on the tab here.

Size: Although this has not been completed yet - print wise, having the physical example present has been an excellent way to reinforce to the students about the exact potential measurements of their designs and print.   Tinkercad has the ability to do this accurately using the 'ruler' option.   The prints will have a base in the region of 80mm square and the disc with the heading and details will be 100 mm across.   These dimensions will obviously change on the basis of the final design.

Timeframe: Depending on the final design we would be anticipating the print time for this project would be four hours for the Snapmaker and two hours for the H2D Bambu.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: While this project is not yet completed it is dependent on the guidance from the person who set the challenge.   Once the best designs have been selected and printed this will provide feedback to the entire class.   One of the issues that would be potentially the importance of the local story local aspects to our trophy - rather than have a generic mountain for instance in the base to have something specific to our locality.