3D Printed Cartoon Ladybug

 

Challenge: For junior student to create an original insect, from scratch, using Tinkercad

Background: As regular visitors to this site will know we have one of our big school events incoming - our Pet Day for 2026.  When this takes place at the start of term four we have some class displays - one of which is a 'tin-can design' however with this design we wanted to showcase of the students creativity.  In this case our students have used their design skills in Tinkercad to create an insect that goes with the design.

We had a range of designs based on the students understanding of insects (which we had also been covering with our literacy work specifically our information report writing).  

 In this instance the student wanted to place the emphasis on the comedic value of the design making it cartoon like with its design.   The legs for the animal are in theory underneath and the wings are not separated as such.    Finally if you see the original design that was shown above the student was able to colour match the design, when the printing was completed the base colour was blue as shown, ideally the student would have had the option of a red or black base - or even a better solution would have been for the ability of the H2D Machine to print with a combination of two colours.     This has been demonstrated previously with our Warriors Coaster or last years Christmas decoration with the colours of Father Christmas.    One option that was not completed but this would have made an exceptional AR/VR projection object with a significant base and strong image.

Resourced used to create this print: iPad, Tinkercad App, Bambu H2D, Bambu PLA.

Level of Difficulty: Medium - as with the rest of the designs in this creation challenge the students were able to use their skills to create insects with a significant recognition factor.    

Size: The print measures 70mm across the front of the design and is 80mm long.   The design is 30mm high.

Cost/Price: The unit uses 30g of PLA filament to complete the print.  This has a price point of $0.58

Timeframe: This print took forty five minutes to complete.  This included a six minute timeframe for the printer to warm up and prepare for printing.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the students: As noted there are a couple of design features that could be developed for the purpose of making it more realistic - the legs if they were added to the design would cause it to be somewhat unbalanced.     At this stage the size of the design is another slight issue - at 80mm and 90mm this is significantly bigger than its real-life version.