3D Printed Student Name Badge - with Cow

Badge design featuring the 'Cow" design.

Challenge: To produce a personalized label for a student as a gift.
Background: Having finally finished as a class a significant number of prints that were themed for the school Market Day the shift was now for the students to move back to more individual projects.   One of the significant introductory projects that our students have been involved with is a the printing of a name tag or label.   These typically are a straight forward design being based around one or two simple main shapes that form the base of the design and with a few other features typical of the design in addition to this.  We encourage a level of penalization, which for most students is to include lettering of their name on the base, a hole or way for something to hold it to be inserted (such as a clip or tie) and depending on the individual we have also had students include an image or design with it.   These processes are nearly always created using Tinkercad and are accessible from the main design interface.   In our experience students who are from eight years old and sometimes younger are able to create these projects independently without supervision - we have also created instructional videos in a step by step process to describe this process.   This particular student was working independently as a nine year old and designing something for the first time.  She had the idea for the 'cow' part of the design

Above: Focus on the '

however after searching on Tinkercad she was not satisfied with the designs that she had located. 
As an alternative she searched on Thingiverse and located the cow part of the design.    She was then able to access it from Thingiverse and import it directly into Tinkercad where she was able to incorporate it into the design.   This print was also the first print from a new role of filament.  In our experience these first prints in a run tend to have some small imperfections which seem to result in the printer starting for the first time - as seen around hole in the design and the head of the cow.
Level of Difficulty: Low - this is an introductory task for students taking their first steps in 3D Printing, we have considerable exemplars and examples available from students who have worked on various projects over the past five years that are on this blog including exemplars.
Size: The design was 130mm long was 60mm high and was 10mm thick.   The lettering was raised 5mm from the base of the design and the head of the cow was slightly higher.    These could have been modified slightly but the dimensions relative to the design were as required.
Timeframe: Three and a half hours.   This print was produced to standard dimensions that are essentially the default settings for projects produced and posted on this blog - an 8mm nozzle setting with a 20% infill of the print.   The printers that are featured here are now five years old and there are more efficient and newer models that would produce quicker times and prints.
What we would do differently/next steps for students: Nil - the purpose if for the student to independently create something, which they did, for it to be original and personalized, which it was and for it to have a practical purpose which it does.   Mission accomplished.
A full video tutorial of this project (student created) is located here.

Y3/4 3D printed student bookmarks

'Sophie' Bookmark with rafting

Challenge: to produce a working bookmark suitable for a student to use.
Background: Previously at Auroa Primary School in a post from last year the students had created a bookmark as part of the Y34/4 STEM program at Auroa Primary School, a link to the original post is here.  This year the program was repeated, for an hour a week on Fridays and a group of students repeated the task.
Task: For the students to design an original bookmark using Tinkercad and then print.  The students are 8 and 9 year old students at school so this design was their first prints.
Level of Difficulty: Low - however this group of students was young and it was their first.

Issues: Once the students started adding detail to the base some of this detail was floating or did not fit well with the basic material - which caused some phantom air printing, resulted in failed prints.
Size: the 'Sophie' bookmark featured here measured 17cm by 4cm with a 5mm base.   The 'Willa' bookmark was 12cm by 7cm with a depth of 5mm.
Time fame: 'Sophie' was three hours and 'Willa' was four - however the first was printed on the Ultimaker 2+ and the latter on an Ultimaker 2 so some variation was expected.
Process: The students designed the projects directly into Tinkercad which was then converted into Cura for the printing on the 3D printers.
Reflection: As a short and practical introductory task for the students this allowed students to create their first projects.  Refinement and reflection should allow for a degreeing of fine tuning to ensure that the finish project meets the brief.

3D Printed Christmas Labels

'Mila' label prior to rafting removal

Challenge: To create a label suitable for the naming of a Christmas present.
Background: This task developed organically from the previous task (which is still a work in progress involving 3D Printed Christmas decorations.  As part of this task while awaiting filament and brainstorming potential ideas about other projects students in the classroom came up with the idea of creating labels to individualise presents.   For these students (Y5/6 students - 10 years old) it would be the first time designing original prints on the 3D printers.
Task: To create a label for the identifying/naming of a Christmas present.  Students needed to consider ways to attach the label to the gift and personalise it (with the persons name).

Above: 'Denise' star label

Level of Difficulty: Low - this was the students first individually designed print attempt in most cases.
Issues: In the first two completed examples - 'Mila' print neglected to have an easy attachment location to secure it to the gift (student could potentially have inserted a hole) the 'Denise' star needed to have a more robust base for the name part of the design and potentially the star aspect could have been thicker, however in both of these cases the students should progress from the original design and refine it to meet the brief successfully.
Size: the 'Mila' print was 4cmx4cmx2cm (although the height could easily have been adjusted to 1cm).   The 'Denise' print was 11cmx11cmx1cm - although as noted it potentially could have been increased to make it more robust).
Timeframe: Approximately two hours for both prints (with adjustments in height to 'Mila')
Process: These were designed directly in Tinkercad by the students concerned before being converted to Cura and downloaded for 3D Printing.
Reflection: The tasks is relatively straightforward with the potential for an entire class to produce models/designs in a straight forward manner in a relatively short print time.  This was an introductory task for the classroom that followed a natural progression from the 'Christmas Decorations' print and in many cases featured the students first individual designs.  Further refinement and improvement would be expected as the students bounce ideas off one another and continue to print.

3D Printed Christmas Decorations

Silhouette of decoration selected for printing

Challenge: For the students to create original Christmas decorations suitable for hanging from a Christmas tree.    Students to personalise them by adding their name to the decorations or the name of the person that they want to gift them too.
Background: In this instance we were looking for a follow up activity to the 'Cookie Cutter' design task that would combine a task that would be realistic for the class to complete individual projects and they would be further able to develop the skills that they had learnt following the steps - students were to be given no assistance in converting a file to an SVG file, as this was to reinforce their learning from the previous lesson.

Above: Converted to Cura Software

Task: Students to design from scratch a decoration, selecting an image or silhouette and then converting this from a screenshot into an SVG file which could be then loaded into Tinkercad (see previous lesson).
Level of Difficulty: Low - students were given no assistance to complete the task as it was in essence a repeat of previous task, however the addition of the personalisation was discussed as well as the process of how to complete it.

Above: Print in progress

Issues: This is a project that will will result in 25 prints from students and this should reinforce the work the students have been completing - there will be considerable variation from each project although ultimately the goal is for each student to complete a piece.
Size: As above there is considerable variation in size.  We will be completing a slideshow that features all of the prints with details about each of them relating to size - the example in this case was 5cm in height and 10cm in length.
Timeframe: As mentioned - the 'sleigh' print shown in this post was a 90 minute print on normal setting.
Process: Students selected an image that met the expected criteria of being a silhouette outline.  Students then converted the file to an SVG format which allowed the file to be uploaded into Tinkercad.  Once it was checked for suitability the print was then downloaded for 3D Printing and converted into Cura Software suitable for printing on the Ultimaker 2.
Note: a Google Slide of this process will be completed shortly that will feature a number of prints in this series/task.  While the original prints are being completed with a regular filament the finished products will be completed with a Glow-In-The-Dark Filament.