Challenge: For students to produce an original stencil that could be used for an art design.
Background: We attempted this in November 2025 and it proved to be a popular challenge for the students. At the time we had a number of other projects that were taking place and it was always going to be something to revise at a later date.
The idea was relatively straight forward. By using the Tinkercad main interface available via the program (or the app) students were able to locate the 'hole' icon. This allows students to pull a hole though a solid shape. In this case it creates a stencil effect. The biggest issue was the thickness of the potential stencil. In the case shown above the Bambu H2D is able to produce a stencil that is 1mm thick - which allows a minimum print time for the project but has enough strength that it can be used as a functional stencil.
Not all of the stencil shapes were successful - the house which can be viewed on the
Tinkercad screenshot which is in the bottom left did not have the correct linking on the inside of the print so when the print was removed from the printer this part of the print did not survive the process (and created the shape which you can see bottom right in the photograph).
The student is now going to refine the design, think about what other shapes might be able to be created, including some specific challenges (see below).
Level of Difficulty: This is low as it is another introductory task. The concept or key idea to use with the challenge is the hole tool. This can be mastered easily by the (seven and eight year old students) and then applied to their general designs. The shapes can be sourced from the
Tinkercad library, or in the case of the house the students can use the 'scribble' command to create unique designs.
Size: The key element to the design is its width or thickness which in this case is 1mm. The print was 150mm long and 86mm wide or tall. To aide in the printing time the stencil shapes are essentially hollow so that part of the plate/design does not print.
Cost/Price: To complete this stencil used 12g of filament. Using the Bambu Lab Studio information we can determine that the cost of this print was $0.30c. A word of caution - this was completed using the Bambu H2D it might be beyond the capability of some 3D printers to complete the details.
Timeframe: The print took 25 minutes to print making it one of the shortest prints that we would be completing - of course this is primarily due to the width of the print. It makes it a potential task to complete with a class of students.
What we do next/Next steps for the students: The key issue with a print like this in the early stage is the detail from the students. They are able to complete this task easily but it is the unique nature of the task where the potential lies. Students could use the scribble command and create a specific design - in this instance the student did not use a 'font' but could have easily done so to create their name, or the name of their school as the centrepiece. It is also considering what patten the stencil might be used for, while obviously some kind of tessellation is easily achieved perhaps the student could have an art piece in mind prior to their
Tinkercad design and they then complete it with this in mind.
This is a post that will be updated when further students have completed their designs.
