3D Printed Glow-In-the-dark Earrings

 

Challenge: For students to produce an original part of earrings.  

Background: This has been a staple design idea from our students - the size of the prints have meant that its something we've been able to produce in details with volume (such as a class set).  Its featured many times over the years from Market Day projects combining both the 3D Printers and the laser printing.

If you want to see a slideshow with an overview of the entire process and a summary of our projects related to this topic you can click on the link here.  In addition as always there is a search bar on the top right hand corner of the blog - this has the keywords for each of our posts or projects which include the keyword 'earring'.

The decision to print the earrings in glow-in-the-dark was made to pop the designs.   The student concentrated on a single design and then duplicated the design when it was completed.  

Resources uses to complete this print: iPad, Tinkercad App, glow-in-the-dark, Bambu H2D.

Level of Difficulty: Medium - as always this task has elements that makes it appear somewhat simplistic but this is not always the case.  As this was tasked as students to be original the students needed to come up with an original idea that would work and have a high recognition factor - the ice cream idea certainly ticked those boxes for the student.   

Size: Each of the prints from this project measures 45mm across at the front and are 50mm high.   The print is 5mm wide.  The ice creams are 40mm in length height wise.   

Cost/Price: The pair of earrings used 18g of PLA to complete the print.  Using the calculations from Bambu Studios the print had a price point of $0.35 for the pair.

Timeframe: To complete this print the printer took 41 minutes to complete both.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: There are a couple of obvious issues with the prints as they stand.  You can see clearly the hole that is visible in the Tinkercad design (the first image) did not translate into an actual hole in the finished print (essentially it was too small and as a result did not register as part of the process).   The two shapes on the side by the ice cream are a little random and the student will evaluate how to wear them.   The print should be robust enough for a hole to be drilled through the design.