3D Printed Bottle Lid and an Engineering Challenge

 

This is the companion print from the bottle exemplar that one of the students has been working on in their own time.   Having spent a crash course on design and Tinkercad in the past four weeks (in the afternoon)

Shaping of the matching lid to pair with the bottle was relatively easy, although the student got the size perfect by putting a hole into the top and then using Tinkercad to remove the hole, make it into a solid object and then use this as the basis for their design.

The challenge is coming the shape of the 'thread' that is on the inside of the bottle top and prominent on the top of the bottle.   Both of these elements need to work in conjunction with each other to allow the bottle to seal.  At present the lid sits on the top perfectly.

However the lid is sitting in place, rather than being screwed down.   The bottle itself is eye catching but the student need to identify a way to solve this engineering challenge.

The lid in its current form has a 40mm and 45mm version, and is currently using 11g of filament.   It is costing $0.28 to print and taking sixty seven minutes to complete the print.

The student responsible for this design is an eight year old working independently in their own time to complete the project.

Extension Student Project: Next Level Boxes

Box Shown above in profile

Challenge: Student wants a creative challenge that will extend themselves.

Background: The student has created a number of projects during the year and would consider themselves to be be a confident student who is capable of design and creation (it should be pointed out the student is an eleven year old).   For the final week of the school year they wanted to complete a project that would have a number of aspects to it.   The first stage with the box was to design the base as shown.   The challenge for the student was for the box to be personalised in some way and be able to have a clear purpose that it would be easily recognised as its main use.    The student opted to include their name on the side of the box and to include the name/title 'lollies' on the other side of the box.    The student wanted to ensure that the lettering worked in the best possible way so the lettering was sunk into the design, rather than having it stick out externally which at times can cause the lettering to fall off.

The student concerned was able to complete the entire design without any input from the teacher using their individual student Tinkercad account.   We have mentioned this previously but one of the reasons that we still use Tinkercad is the fact that the teaching interface/classroom organisation is exceptionally easy to use and effective.

Level of Difficulty: Low - its a basic design that looks impressive but the student was able to complete this without previous experience in box design or input from the teacher so that makes it the best kind of print.  The student was confident of the dimensions and the design and extremely pleased/proud of the finished product.   The next challenge for the student is to link this to a lid that is functional and fits perfectly with the base - this has been completed before but it increases the difficulty quite considerably.

Size: The base of the box measures 120mm across is 120mm long and is 40mm high.  The sides are 5mm think meaning that the box is quite robust and this, also considering the fact that the lettering is internal means there are no concerns about how strong it is.

Timeframe: Four hours to print on the standard default settings.  Given the intention/purpose of the box and what was required this would be correct - any scaling either smaller or larger wasn't really required.

Next Step for the Students/What we would do differently: We have already identified or targeted the fact that the success of the lid will be crucial to this design.  This will require exact measurements and a lid that interacts perfectly with the main box - in our experience as shown on this blog this is going to be a challenge...

3D Printed Box Lid: Developing a 'Locking' Lid Version 4.0

Above: Design shown prior to PLA removal for lid insertion

Challenge: Use a 3D Print to produce a box with a working lid that can be sealed.
Background: As part of the major sound lure project that are students are working on, one of the key issues is 'water proofing' - ensuring that the sound lure is able to be deployed but protected from the environment.  This is another box in the series but this student wanted to use the 3D Printer to produce a lid that could be locked in place to ensure that the container was water tight and the lid would not come off unless it was removed.    As shown in the photograph on the left the lid has breakable component parts that need to be carefully removed to enable the lid to be slid into place.   With the lid then inserted into the gap created by the removal of the excess PLA the additional support for the lid as shown holds it in place.  There is also an internal wall with a removable section to support a division between the battery storage and the speakers.   The students were basing all these dimensions on the speaker/sound device combination that our students are presently working through.   These dimensions reflected the design, shape and size of this sound lure.   

Degree of Difficulty: High - this is pushing the students in this class to the limit to test their designs and creations using the materials and designs available.   With the PLA just below the lid removed (as shown left) the idea is clearly demonstrated. 
Size:  The box is similar to other designs in this series to reflect the size of the sound device.   It was 100mm by 100mm square with a height of 60mm.   The internal wall was placed 30mm from the end of the box to include the batteries as storage.
Time frame: Nine hours to print on the regular settings of nearly everything that we've printed over the last five years.  8mm nozzle (in some earlier posts this has been described as a 4mm nozzle but this was incorrect due to a misunderstanding.  The infill is the 20% standard default.    There was some adjustments made below.

What we would do differently/Next steps for students: While this lid will work the students concerned needs to make adjustments.   The lid needs to have more support from the frame of the box at the top and especially the sides - we will still be using this box for the project but further lids will have a more robust lid combination.  The external wall needs to have some adjustments so that the batteries can be placed from one side of the device to work through without having to re-wire the sound lure.