3D Printed Cup Coaster - with 'scribble'

 

Challenge: To produce an original item for consideration for market day 2025.

Background: This was one of the ideas that students had at the time when we were planning ideas and designs for our school market day in 2025.   This was an original prototype that the students created that subsequently didn't advance past the planning stage, however once the year was completed we started looking at projects that were otherwise not developed due to time constraints such as printer machine availability.

This design was recently identified as having potential and will be something that we will look at developing with the class of students who will be starting in February of 2026.  In this example the students utilised the design template (something that you could easily push out to the entire class via their Tinkercad accounts) and then added the design that is shown in the middle of the coaster.

The middle design was created by a eight year old student using the 'scribble' tool which allows the free creation of a particular shape and then applies it into a design.   In this case the student has opted very sensibly to sink the design into the base of the coaster (as of course having done so it doesn't affect the balance of the cup).

In this example the lip of the holder extends 7mm however this could easily be increased which would increase the stability.   Personalisation of this design is also a very obvious next step for the student.

Level of Difficulty: This is low as the base of the design was located by the student, downloaded and then added to.   Creating the layering required to make a coaster is a very simple two step process, as is the decoration in the base.   The eight year old was able to complete this independently without any teacher input.

Size: The print measured 110mm across was 10mm thick.  These dimensions worked perfectly for a regular cup however the obvious potential would be to customise this design in either direction (including super sized) depending on the requirements.

Cost: Using the Bambu Studio auto costing information the print uses 34g of filament.   The cost to produce a print with this filament is 85c.   For a standard roll of filament that would be 1kg costing $30.00 we would be able to produce 29 of these prints - which given the potential cost (and print time) would mean it would be a potential market day future item.

Timeframe: The print took under one hour to print (55 minutes).   Obviously any adaption of the size of this print would cause an adjustment to the time.   This was also completed with the Bambu H2D using a standard printer (such as the Snapmaker) would mean that we would expect the print to take twice as long (and there also likely to be less definition with the shaping).

What we would do Differently/Next steps for the students: This is potentially an excellent introductory task one that realistically a class could complete  as the print time is not impossible to imagine that it could not be completed during the course of a week.