3D Printed Christmas Tree - First Version

 

Challenge: For a nine year old student to develop and create an original festive themed Christmas Tree.

Background: We created festive tree that were originally virtual digital creations and following this we selected several trees that we thought had potential to move from the virtual format into a physical print.

This tree shown left was one of the first trees in the sequence that we made the decision to print.   The student had designed it to be placed on a mantlepiece.

Size: The tree measures 90mm across at the front and is 60mm wide.   The tree measured 120mm from the base of the trunk to the top of the star.  There was a degree of imbalance with the design with the size of the star in particular looks a bit lop sided compared to the rest of the design.

Cost/Price:   To print this design the print uses 71g of PLA.   This gave the project a price point of $1.43c.   

Timeframe: To print this design the printer was running for two hours and forty five minutes.   The print had a degree of rafting/support plastic under the base of the tree and around the trunk of the tree.

What we would do differently/next steps for the students:

The design itself is quite basic the baubles that the students has used to create the vast majority of the decorations needs refinement so there is variation and creativity.   The star as noted is currently very oversized.   The tree is a basic triangle shape.

The student was going to be further adapted and then consider the idea of decoration or spray painting.

3D Printed Christmas Tree: Junior Example

Challenge: To produce an original and suitable Christmas tree with potential to include LED lighting.
 

Background: Please note school has now concluded for 2025, our students and our teacher will be back at this stage in February 2026.   In the meantime we are finishing off the year with a series of posts wrapping up 2025 and also including some of the 'best of' highlights of the year,

This challenge was set for the entire class with a range of challenges during the last weeks of school based around the creation of Christmas Trees.   Students created a range of Christmas Trees and AR/VR them into cards and also various challenges around the school.

This challenge was slightly different in that the students (this was created by a seven year old student) had to design a tree and then ultimately the goal was printing the tree and looking at the possibility of using LED lights to light up the tree - similar to how we had worked some of the projects related to our school Market Day for 2025.  

The intention was to include LED lights and potentially use glow-in-the-dark filament to pop the print.

Level of Difficultly: High.   This had a number of elements that the student designed working in conjunction with each other.  Key to this print was how would the LED lights be hung from this design - this was the 'ring' that can be seen wrapping its way around the design.   

Size: The print measures 100mm high, has a base that is 80mm in diameter.   This is the base which extends the furtherest, the tree itself extends 50mm in diameter from the base.

Cost: 72g of filament was used in the production of this tree.  The cost according to Bambu Lab with its price point identifying that the $1.72 to produce the tree.

Timeframe: Three and a half hours using the Bambu H2D.  This was used as during the design the detail that was included (in the groves and in some of the decorations).   We would not have attempted to complete this print using the Snapmaker.  A relatively simple design was completed with grooves (which was intended for the LED lighting).

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the students: This is a straightforward print in some ways, in other ways (the LED lights) there are complex elements to the prints.   Some of the decoration on this tree looked fine in Tinkercad but didn't translate really well to the printed version.

We are very reluctant to complete prints that had a large level of rafting (waste plastic).  This print had a notable print support under each of the levels of the tree - which as a result meant quite a bit had to be removed.

We have yet to complete the print using glow-in-the-dark filament.  In doing so we would imagine that it would considerable add a level of presentation to the print.   The cost or the print time etc would not increase significantly.

3D Printing Christmas Cracker Challenge

 

Challenge: To produce the 'item' that you might find in a regular Christmas cracker.

Background: This challenge was based around the concept of the students developing something that by its nature needed to be small.  The item needed to fit inside a cracker to meet the success criteria to be printed - if it was too big too fit in, it was 'out'.

This really refined the students designs as early in the process the students typically went too big and when they then adjusted the size to meet the criteria the purpose could be lost.  To ensure that it was correct I purchased a small amount of crackers from the dollar store, this gave the students more spatial awareness of what they were dealing with and how they were also challenged.

An early example came left in the form of this tree.   

Level of Difficulty: Low - this was a whole class activity and a range of responses were expected while some would clearly hit the mark easily the restrictions on size caused a challenge that some students really found more challenging than they should have.

Size: The tree measured 50mm high, was 30mm wide and was 10mm deep.  It was designed as a ornament to hang on the tree, although there was a hole in the star that was supposed to allow a thread to be passed through it to allow it to be tied.  This hole was too small for this purpose so it had to be sent back to be redesigned.

Cost/Price:

The dimensions of this print meant it used 4g of PLA and had a cost of $0.10 NZD.

It is one of the selections of 3D Prints that the students designed that looked fantastic as a Tinkercad design, looked wonderful when AR/VR around the classroom and in position as a tree but possibly lost something in the translation of becoming a print.  It would be possible to make this multiple colours potentially.

Timeframe: 17 minutes this was a situation where the machine warming up, starting the process and preparing to print took longer than the print itself.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the Students: The student met the brief however there are adjustments that are required - the connection to the way to hang the decoration at the top of the tree being the most obvious.   The print would be a great example of something that could be used for a bunting etc as its size and time frame means the potential of the printing could be completed en masse.

Laser Cut: Christmas Decorations

 

We have always encouraged students to look at unpacking their ideas and creations including locating and working out how an item was made.

Recently we had students who attending a local craft market, as part of the market one of the students purchased a cartoon-ish reindeer which is shown in the left of the group photo.

The student purchased this item, brought it into school and this created a situation where we were able to look at how it had been put together.  This became a situation where we asked our students - how was this made, what did it take to create and where was the use of technology.

We then decided to pose the question - is this something that we could make? What might it look like - and what else could we produce.

We started by using a basic search engine but then included in the search the phrase laser cut template and Christmas decorations.

The students located the tree shown left.   This temple included a base and a mid point, and the design was freely available on a site as a free template download.  The file was duly downloaded and the laser cut was completed.

The actual laser cutting took approximately six minutes- the 3D Print version of something this size would have been considerably longer.

The next step for the students is what can we add to the design, what can we use to decorate this further - how can our students potentially use a 3D Printer or other material to finalise the decoration for this project.   The potentially to produce a run of class prints (a set of twenty five or so).

3D Printed Christmas Trees: Mini Class Project Juniors

Challenge: For every student in the classroom to create a unique Christmas tree for the classroom, where everyone in the classroom of twenty six Year Three and Year Four.

Background: While we have already completed a series of prints from this sequence - as detailed on this blog including Christmas ornaments, Christmas Angels, Snowman and large scale trees.

The next step was something that we have been asked about in the past, how can we produce a series of prints realistically for a class of students, when you are running one printer.   Essentially we are running just the one - at this school we are so lucky to have three main printers that are available for use - one of the awesome things this year has been having new staff members to school who have also got on board with 3D Printing projects and this also has meant that the printing project time has to be managed carefully.

Early this year we completed a series of prints based around the students creating earrings - this worked extremely well as the print time typically was under half an hour per project, and for a classroom of students was achievable.

We have detailed in the past some of the aspects related to Tinkercad and in particular the main interface.  In the example shown left are some of the pre-created shapes that can be imported easily into the students design screen.   Once the shape has been imported the students are able to add additional shapes, as has been shown in previous designs such as the star, and the bobbles for the tree.

This potentially is something that could be completed by the younger juniors - our classroom is going to put these designs to students from our Y1 classroom, as we would rate this as an 'easy' for them to complete with the assistance of our older students (again as noted in the past we have a classroom of seven and eight year olds).

Level of Difficulty: Easy.   This is something that we are going to work on with our classroom of juniors working with a classroom of Y1 students on a peer basis - these students have never used Tinkecad before, and we are confident given the scaffolding and work from the students in our classroom that it will be successful.   We want to very much involve our students in using the AR/VR option for iPads to check for potential printing errors and design flaws.

Size: We targeted this print with the intention of making it small, to make sure printing is feasible in the case of completing it for my classroom and also with a number of other students.   The examples shown left is 40mm high and 20mm wide at the tree portion of the print and the trunk measures 10mm across and a further 20mm high).    It has been suggested that this would also make a pair of novelty earrings.   

Timeframe: One hour for the example shown left.  This is ideal for the print and we would likely redirect students who would create something larger than this.   This creates a print that is unique and would be suitable for hanging from a tree.  Again we wanted to allow for the creation that could be realistically produced for a class set before the end of the term.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students:

This option has proven already to be successful task for the classroom which a number of students have completed.   The size and timeframe were realistic, and the skills required are something that our students have proven that they have developed using Tinkercad during the year.

Refining and Redesigning the Christmas Tree

Challenge: Students 3D Printed a Christmas Tree can they use the example and redesign it to improve its features and presentation.

We mentioned this design briefly - the student wanted to create a unique Christmas Tree design using Tinkercad and did so.   When they had completed it we got them to think critically about the final print, what they had produced, its dimensions, lettering and other details.   Our challenge to the students was how can this be improved? What can we adapt from this design?

The students first task was to look at the dimensions - the original was 60mm wide and the lettering as a result was clustered and hard to read.  By increasing the base size to 120mm the lettering could be doubled which made it much clearly and easy to read.   The other change was the presentation of the lettering.  

In the original on the left the lettering extended out from the print this lacked the clarity and detail which was achieved by placing the lettering inside the design as shown on the right.   

The original design was 120mm high the redesign was 140mm but it was the width of the design where the improvement in scale was made.

The link at the top of the design was significantly increased as well - we had the ability to have the original looped however we increase the size of it.   Finally the last aspect of it was the baubles.  

There was a consequence increase in the length of the print time - the improve tree took four hours to print which would be near the top end for this piece given the intentions of it.