3D Printed Christmas Tree Angel - Progression

 

Challenge: To produce an original, unique Christmas ornament that is suitable to hang from a festive tree.

Background: This came out of the range of designs that have been produced by students in the classroom.  In this case we wanted to guide a student into further innovations by providing them with feedback with the process.   For this example the student used the 'waving' figure from the Tinkercad template and combined it with the wings from the same design space (these are the wings that have featured in some of our students butterfly designs from the insect series.

The student who completed this designs and revision is a nine year old student who has been working on their CAD designs as part of classroom program this year.   We gave them verbal feedback about the design and they undertook some revisions.

It was obvious from version one that the decoration needed to hang from the tree so the student was able to make this adjustment easily by creating the loop shown left.   The student was also tasked with providing some personalisation with the design.  They choose to introduce the phrase "Merry Christmas" to the design.   As the size of the print (see below) did not allow space for the detail to be fully realised this part of the design did not print - it was also suggested to the student that they could provide additional features to the design.

They opted to rephrase the writing shortening the phrase from 'Merry Christmas' to 'Merry Xmas'.   They also opted to introduce the 'snowflake design' that is also part of the Tinkercad design library as this had been produced to excellent use on another classroom student project.  You can see the results of this third stage of design in the third photo on this page.

Resources used to complete this project: iPad, Tinkercad App,  Tinkercad Online Resource Library, Bambu H2D Printer, Bambu Bronze PLA (regular)

Size: The print despite undergoing a series of revisions has essentially maintained the same dimensions.  The print measures 60mm from wing to wing.   The print measures 60mm high including the addition of the loop to hang the print from the tree easily.   The figure has a width of 20mm is 40mm high and 20mm deep.   

Cost/Price:  One of the main reasons that we were able to reprint this project several times was that the price point was $0.18c this was based on the entire project using 9g of PLA to be completed.  There was minimal rafting on the print.

Timeframe: As with the cost and use of PLA the printing was relatively straightforward to produce one of units took half an hour and that included only twenty four minutes of printing time as the remainder was taken up in the printing warming up.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students:   The student added in the 'snowflake' detail onto the wings and while it is visible they were a little disappointed with the outcome, although they have considered shifting this.    The student could look at different filament - with glow-in-the-dark being the most obvious one, as it would allow the print to glow continually during the night as it would 'charged' by light during the day.