3D Printed Money Box - 2025 Edition

 

Challenge: For student to produce an original money box using Tinkercad to complete the process.  Student was an eight year old designing independently.

Background: This was the last week of school where the students had time to explore the possibility of what they might be able to create.   We had the students construct, build and develop a range of prints and during the end of year break (which is occurring now) we selected a number of prints that have value moving forward.  In this instance while the design is simple and straightforward we believe that it will encourage other students to develop their creation skills - and for students who will require more of a challenge there is the issue of the student designing a way to lock the box and have a underside base panel for access for what is put into the box.

As can be viewed by the photographs showing this design the print was completed using glow-in-the-dark filament this was done just to give the project a novelty factor, it was not required for the print in general.

Level of Difficulty - Low at present, but the potential is clearly there for an upgrade based around how this print might be refined and reworked.  The student in this case was an eight year old who had been using Tinkercad for the year so was confident to work independently to complete the visible access of the task.  The face design is relatively basic and the details could have been developed further.  The hat has featured a number of times in various prints this year and is available as an item search on Tinkercad.

Size: The print measures 100mm wide, was 75mm deep and 60mm high.   The hat extended a further 40mm from the corner of the box upwards.

Cost: Using the software that is present with Bambu studio the print is determined to use 130g of PLA to complete the project and the cost of these PLA was identified as being $3.27.   Of note as this was completed with the Bambu H2D and there was a minimal amount of waste PLA with the print.

Timeframe: From the dimension of the print and the details of the print it was a significant print - it took four hours and forty five minutes to complete, which makes it using the Bambu H2D one of the larger prints that we completed during the school year.

What we would do differently/next steps for the student: As can clearly be shown left the student has yet to complete the underside base panel to secure items to go into the money box.   This is not as simple as it seems as the student needs to develop a locking mechanism to work within the dimensions that have already been printed.   This would be a task that a number of students could complete.    As noted previously the details on the top of the box, such as a the face could have further additions made to it.   The balance between adding details and not overpowering the print is also an issue that would need to worked out.

This was a 2025 design that was a reworked 2024 money box - view it by clicking on the link here.