3D Printed Miniature Pot

Challenge: To produce a unique and individualised accurate pot plant holder.

Background: We have recently started having regular enviro group meetings here at our school.  One of the tasks that the students who are involved in the project have been given is to use a variety of seeds to grow some basic vegetables and herbs.  

These were supplied to students in compostable seedling pots that required watering.  When water the pots themselves tended to become wet, maintained the moisture and lost their shape etc.

One of the students who is in the classroom recognised the potential to address this by using the 3D Printer to create a base in which either the entire place could be grown or the compostable hessian like container could be placed and any soil or water leaking from the seedling could be contained.   The student who is eight years old was able to use their knowledge of Tinkercad and the designs that had been created this year to complete this in their own time easily and without the teacher providing any input.

The student made the decision as the Enviro group was the focus for the group that this was the labelled that was placed on the front of the design.  This was created as the prototype design to see if this was a viable creation and would in conjunction with the potential to seed raise.

Level of Difficulty: Low - this is a modification of some of the basic tasks that the students are typically able to produce after a few sessions learning to use Tinkercad in a practical way.

Size: The design measured 70mm across at the front was 100mm long and 5mm deep at the base.  The tower part of the design was 45mm high from the base of the plate.  The tower had a diameter of 60mm which allowed one of the compostable containers to sit in the design, If the intention was to replant the seeds then this would need to be increased or the seeds tipped out.

Cost/Price: Using the Bambu Studio Labs software to determine the price point and the cost of the design we can determine that the print used 41g of filament to complete at a cost of $1.01.   

Timeframe: One hour to complete using the Bambu H2D - a reminder that this machine is essentially twice as fast as the previous machines that we were using (Snapmaker) and as such we would expect the time to be considerably more if another machine was used.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: With the example shown while the student has solved a problem there are some refining issues that could be completed.   The obvious one was the addition of the students name, perhaps on the reverse of the design or by the Enviro label so that the owner of the container would be obvious.   The size of the contained could be increase slightly so that the compostable container sits clearly within it.   Finally the tower part of the design does not have any drainage holes inside it.  While if used to house another container it would not be a significant amount of moisture if this was to be a more permanent growing location then something would be required.