Minecraft Vs Tinkercad Masterclass: Villager

 

Challenge: For student to make an original version of a Minecraft figure, developing using their iPad and the Tinkercad App to add detail so the figure is recognisable and balanced.

Background: Its been established and detailed on this blog that the challenge from last week was to design a Minecraft character - a number of these examples were detailed here on this blog.  One of the students who completed this task and produced the amazing Axolotl we featured on Thursday.   He was determined to complete another design and used his knowledge of Minecraft to think about what figure he wanted to produce.

One of the challenges of producing a character in 3D is that essentially the figures in the game are generally quite flat and therefore producing details on the figures can be challenging.   The student in this case was to choose a figure that had a distinctive feature - the hat.

We have also considered the prospect of using the Versa Sign Maker to print a sticker with the details of the Minecraft character on the sticker which would then be applied to the 3D Printed figure.    This is a post however for another day.

The figure top left is the original figure from Minecraft that the student wanted to recreate.   The second picture (shown left) is the students recreation of this figure using the Tinkercad App and the students iPad. 

The student was able to complete a range of colour matching using the variable colour in Tinkercad.   The design time was the student working independently on this figure at home they did not complete any of it in the classroom, although they did modify the design when they were directed to do so.

Level of Difficulty: Hard - to complete this design with a degree of accuracy, to gain the recognition and the details that is required given the small stature of this design.  This student has shown a degree of talent and is an exceptional design student for an eight year old.

Size: The design is 70mm high, 20mm wide and 20mm long.  This was an exceptional use of size and scale of this design.

Cost Price: The print used 22g of PLA to complete which had a price point of $0.53 to produce the print.

Timeframe: The print with the dimensions that it has took one hour to produce using the Bambu H2D.   If we had used a different machine, or used different setting others than the regular settings we would see an appropriate increase in the print time.   As it was the print was a short term print that was intended to illustrate the design.  The purpose of the design at the moment needs to be more clearly determined and the resizing of the print would then occur.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the Students:

The purpose of the print needs to be more clearly defined and any change of purpose would alter the size of the print.   As mentioned we are in the planning stages of using the Versa Sign Maker to produce matching media for the recognition of the design.     The student is attempting to determine what other Minecraft figures can be produced that would have a combination of the design and recognition factors.