Ongoing 3D Projects: General Items for the End of 2022

As we are working towards the end of the school year in New Zealand we have a group of students who are working on several different projects at once.   This is a brief roundup of what some of the students in our classroom are currently working on.

Once again we have had a look at working within our local community to produce items that are specific to local businesses or local groups.   We've done this extensively in the past and some of our creations have been used for several years by local businesses/organisations as the PLA has maintained its shape despite three or four years of being handled and used.   This is part of a design for a local tractor contracting business which will be eventually turned into a key ring with the business logo slightly refined and a hole included with the design.   There is some thought to the colour combination and refining the design but this is proving to be a positive experience for everyone involved.  The projected print time will be in the three hour mark for the fully finished product.

Regular followers of this blog will be aware that we are usually reluctant to print freely available models unless there are special circumstances or we can see it leading into other projects.  In this case the dragon was located via Thingiverse.  In its current form it came out as a single print, which took an eight hour job on the regular settings.   The student who printed this wanted to increase its presentation by looking at its decoration.  It has been spray painted and small little details have been added to the eyes.   The student was to increase the colour combinations with the print, including putting gold detail.  There is the potential for other related prints to tie into this project.

The designs in this project have come again from Thingiverse, however there is an exception - in this case the deign has been altered.  As part of our detailed market day project, where our students ran various businesses,  many featuring 3D printed designs, one of the junior school teachers identified the potential to have the animals modified to help as a resource with rote counting.

The addition of the numbers in the base of the slugs is a simple tasks, the intention is to use the slugs for junior students to help with their counting.   We are currently meeting with our junior teachers to ensure that the blocks or segments on the base of the slug fits the counting expectations of the classroom.   We are able to replicate the segments of the slugs to include larger numbers.

Market Day: Developing the Technology in Use

 

We are continuing to look at ways to incorporate our schools technology into our upcoming Market Day showcase for the students.

We have shown the flexible animals (flexi-animals) as a major product which has been used for the 3D Printer.   We have been looking at ways to enhance the presentation.  One of the ways is to use another piece of technology to produce the backing, as shown in the photograph on the left.   A vinyl printer has been used to produce a professional grade sticker which the 3D printed slug can be mounted to using blu-tack.   This has created a strong backing unit for the slug which is going to be further enhanced by using another key piece of our school technology - the laser cutter to cut a board of MDF which the sticker produced by the vinyl printer will then be stuck (it has been printed with adhesive backing as a sticker) to the MDF.

We have also refined our games that we are selling.   We have revised the print to look at slightly to improve the print time.  The original took ten hours, however we challenged one of the students to decrease this time, which he was able to do by redesigning the board, essentially making it less deep - this reduced the time from ten hours to five making the production of the boards much more manageable.