3D Printing: Barn Printing Replacement

Challenge: To replicate or replace the broken parts to a farm barn toy building using their iPads, Tinkercad and 3D Printing.

Background: Last year we had a major school project - the Dolls House where the students spent a year remodelling the furniture for a play set.   You can click on the link here and view the summary from last year.

This year as we have noted the focus is on the barn play set as originally detailed here.    Recently we've started zeroing in on various aspects of the design with a focus on the doors.   As part of this process the students were heavily involved in using measurement and measuring in centimetres and millimetres.    Students used a variety of rulers and measuring tapes.

Students also used the Tinkercad App to AR/VR to test the viability of the design by projecting it into the place where it was to be placed.   In this instance shown left the orange door is the virtual version - the 3D Printed version is the top photograph on the right hand side.

Level of Difficulty: Hard - while the door is simple and straightforward the hinge is something that the students need to master and is proving very problematic.   We have looked at the doors in the classroom and used other examples - looking at the shapes and the design and how the door works in relation to the hinge.  The size of the design proved to be excellent for this task.   Printing the door was relatively straightforward and the time was easily completed.

Size: The print was 60mm wide and 70mm long.   The print was 4mm thick.   The hinge at the top left and the top right of the door needs a small adjustment.  It needs a small adjustment with its width to ensure that it can operate with the hinge successfully.

Cost/Price: The print used 21g of PLA to complete.   This had a price point of $0.54c.   Regular PLA was used for this task as it was completing a door and could be colour matched with spray painting or having 'barn door colour'.

Time: The print took forty one minutes to complete.  This included the time to heat up the printer and have the print set itself up.

Wheat we would do differently/Next steps for the students: The issue is again with the hinge and the ability of this door to swing in and out.   The students were successful with the measuring part of the task as were the majority of the classroom.   As we have mentioned we are going to use electronic callipers moving forward for accurate and detailed measurement.