Creating Doors for our Farm Toy Building

 

We have a number of projects that are ongoing this year, designed to engage and challenge our students.  The Dolls House Project from 2025 has led us to look into other rebuilding projects for 2026.   In this example we selected a thrift store farm building that required a number of missing parts.

As we have done with many projects this year we have students having a brainstorming session followed by a degree of design using #Tinkercad and their #iPads we have previously posted we had students brainstorm ideas, create a draft and then place it on the design using Tinkercad's AR/VR tool.

The next step in the process for the students is to start the physical printing of the early prototype with a lean towards refining, adapting and improving the students design.   The photo left shows the first version of the door for the front of the building.    This is a straightforward design for the students which features a small handle and an attempt to solve the issue of a hinge by developing an attachment for the slot to connect to.

The door has been made independently by a Y4 student who is using Tinkercad for the second year.  It is a basic rectangular design, which was sized by the student.   The attempt to complete the door by having it work in conjunction with the groove works in the sense that it holds it in place when static but when the door is opened it tends to fall off.   While the students could glue the door into place the intention is to have them experience some basic engineering to problem solve successfully.

The current dimensions of the door shown are a 60mm by 80mm rectangle.   It took 45 minutes to complete, used 18g of filament at a cost of $0.45

The other part of the design that students are trying to deal with is the roof.  Again we have followed a similar process to the door.   The students identified the measurements, worked on some basic shapes and the adapted these to meet the design of the roof.   The final part for consideration and again the hardest part of the design for the students to complete was to work out a way to have a bracket or a clip that could attach to the top of the design so that it would swing open.

Students have nearly solved this issue - but again the roof is staying in place instead of swinging or clipping in place.   Currently the roof feature measures 80mm across and is 100mm long.   The print took thirty five minutes to complete, used 16g of filament and had an associated cost to print of $0.40g.

To ensure durability of the clip we made the decision to print both of these pieces of the farm building using the Bambu H2D printer.   Both designs will need to be re-engineered and adapted by the students.