3D Printed 'Eyes' Project

Challenge: For a junior school student to create a unique design and for the design to include a physical object to enhance its presentation.

Background: This design developed along with several from the classroom during this recent challenge.   The way that this design was created where the face was developed and made 'flat' was designed in a way that it became apparent that it would work well in conjunction with a physical object to enhance its presentation which in this case was the pair of eyes that the student selected to add to the face of the design.   

The basic design was completed by the eight year old without additional assistance from the teacher.

The student created this design from scratch and did not use anything other than the basic shapes that are available from the Tinkercad interface.

The eyes themselves came as part of a large pack that were purchased from a local chain store.  We have used them in the past such as with the cyclops design from 2025 which you can view by clicking on the link here.

Resources used to complete this print: iPad, Tinkercad App, Eyes from chain store, Bambu H2D, silver PLA.

Level of Difficulty: Medium there are some elements that the student could have refined however they worked well together and the eyes did add significantly to the details and the presentation of the piece.

Size: The print measured 60mm at the front is 70mm long and was 60mm wide.  The sides were generally between 10mm and 20mm wide.  While there was limited storage with this design it allowed the print to be manageable for both the size and the price.

Cost/Price: The unit used 49g of regular PLA to complete the task.  This has a price point of $1.00.

Timeframe: To complete the print the printer using the regulation default settings took two hours and twenty six minutes to complete the task.

What we would do differently/next steps for the students:  The student was happy with the design as they felt that it met the brief.   Some feedback was provided for the lettering which was a little bunched together as shown in the middle photograph.   The lettering could also have been adjusted.  Facially the student was happy but could have perhaps looked at some features that made it more dog like.

 

3D Printed Giant Cyclops Design

 

Challenge: For an eight year old student to create a unique 3D Printed design using Tinkercad that includes plastic eyes as part of the design.

Equipment Used: iPad, Tinkercad App, Orange PLA (regular) Bambu H2D.

Background: This design came out first in a challenge set to our students from September 2025 to include a novelty eye as part of a Tinkercad design.  We revised this again in April of this year having students include the physical (eye) as part of a design.

This design came out of this print.  It needs to be stated at this point that this is an extremely large oversized design and it was always intended as a single print.   The design was completed by an eight year old student who is showing flair and creativity with his work both last year and this year in the classroom - he created this design and did so without any input from the teacher.

Level of Difficulty: High/Hard - this design was developed over several attempts by the students and they revised the design several times to ensure that it was balanced and robust and worked.

Size: The print is significant for a single run print.   It measures 150mm across the main body has the tentacles that extend 120mm from the top of the print and has legs that are 70mm high.   From the base of the print to the top is 240mm.

Cost/Price: Using the inbuilt software for Bambu Studio Labs the the print used 364g of filament (including rafting under the design) and had a price point on current dimensions of $9.10.

Timeframe: The intention was always to push the limits of the printer with this design and the print took fourteen hours to complete.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: Due to the scale of the design and the length of time it took to complete it is not viable as such to complete it again and is more of a one off.  The student put too large and deep holes in the base of the design and this is an excellent storage for whiteboard markers (as shown in the photographs).    The eyes that can be seen at the front of the design could have benefitted from being placed more to the front of the design as they are somewhat sunken into place by the design.

3D Printing Lore - Juniors can 3D Print

 

We've been creating a set of teaching points to consider relating to challenging the thinking of teachers and educators with the use or application at a regular state school.

Previously we've already stated three:

#1 You don't need more than one machine to 3D print with your students at school.  This year we are anticipating using a single machine for our classroom and the majority of the 3D Printing work at our school.

#2 You don't need to 3D print all of your 3D printing projects.  We again this year will be creating and designing a number of projects but not all of them will make it to the printing stage - a number will be published as AR/VR images and other designs.

#3 3D Printing Glow in the Dark - changing filament to a different kind of printing is increasingly simple and adds dimensions, texture and a different aspect to the students designs.

#4 Juniors Can 3D Print.  This blog has gone through several stages of development, starting with its initial years the designs and creations were completed by senior students.   Since 2022 the prints, designs and creations on this site have been generally created by students who are seven and eight years old.

One of the biggest misconceptions that is currently met by many teachers is that 3D Printing is for seniors (older students) and not something that juniors are capable of or necessarily have the skills to complete, which was very much my own line of thinking when I changed classroom levels to the junior school - nothing could be further from the truth.   Students have consistently and constantly shown great aptitude to use Tinkercad to develop and plan, adapt and create a wide range of projects for the most part completely independently of the teacher.

A case in point which we are highlighting now is the 'cyclops' storage print which came as a result of introducing the 'eyes' sticker sheet shown above to the students.   When given to the students as a challenge the idea was to produce a character using an eye as the starting point.

Students in the classroom produced a range of ideas and one of the seven year old students created the design featured on this page.  They did so independently of the teacher, with the exception of the 'eye'.   The concept, the idea, the design and process was all completed by the student who then in turn handed the final .stl file to the teacher for the teacher to print.  There was no input or guidance and was completed by a student in their first year using Tinkercad.

The design took just over one hour to print, details of the full process and how it modified over time can be seen on this post here, followed by the final design which is described here.