Refining and Working: Junior School Badges

 

Challenge: To take a badge design and redefine it further, extending and expanding on it.

Background: We have a class of students who are refining their 3D Design and creations.  As part of the process a series of students have been exposed to the 3D Printers and projects for the first time.   

We started the students with the basic designs and have then asked them to challenge themselves with the next step - what can we do next? What have we learnt to develop our designs with unique and creative creations?

This design came from a student who had a farming background and wanted to incorporate a tractor design into his work.  While he could have looked to have have imported a pre-made design into this, he instead decided to represent the shapes by using a round of geometric shapes to create the tractor design.  The ability to do so is one of the key components that make Tinkercad such an excellent tool for a class of iPad students.

Level of Difficulty: Medium to low.  This is a straightforward design idea, that shows a students ideas developing and starting to increase the scope of designs.   The student is just starting to push himself in creative and innovative ways having just started working with 3D Printing and Tinkercad - in the last three weeks.   There is clear and obvious potential to improve and refine this design further.

Timeframe: Five hours - this could potentially be refined further as a reduction was possible.

Size: The print measured 165mm across the front and was 85mm high.  The print was 5mm thick.  These dimensions produced an oversize key ring or badge that would work for certain keys (such as a door key) or the kind of key that you would not want to loose (as its size would prevent it from easily being put into a pocket or misplaced.

What we would do differently/next steps for students: We are attempting to encourage this student with his designs and creations and this is shown clear progression from his first designs.  When he completed his initial print he was being helped by another student, which then led to him working independently to complete the stencil.   This then led to there being a progression through to this design and it should be a signal of things to come.

3D Printed Tractor Pencil Sharpener

Above: Design shown prior to removal of rafting

Challenge: To incorporate a pencil sharpener into a 3D Printed design.
Background: This challenge came as part of a group of objects supplied to students.   They were given a group of common objects from the classroom - pencil sharpeners and magnets.   There were several other groups of students operating in a process which involved a design/plan on paper and then was followed by a digital creation and feedback.  Other groups of students settled on a Pacman design (as featured on this blog here) and there are other designs to come.   These students opted for a tractor design with the design of the tractor coming from the main Tinkercad interface as the tractor was built from the basic shapes (starting with a rectangle for the base).   The students then added additional features to the tractor and produced the print shown.   Key to this was reviewing the print prior to printing to ensure that it was balanced, as in a review it was shown that the wheels needed to be adjusted.  This was two students who are ten years old first independent and significant 3D Printing project.   It should also be noted

Above: Design showing location of pencil sharpener.

that the students had minimal rafting on the design with the supportive PLA being restricted to the amount that was underneath the base of the tractor.   The students are going to review the print when it is completed and look to add additional details to the tractor.  These are going to be printed in relation to the size of the tractor that has been produced (see below).
Level of Difficulty: High - this design needs to work on two levels, the first aspect is the tractor design and creation.   The second aspect was the location of the pencil sharpener.  The students opted to have a inbuilt part of the tractor that was located at the front with an insert on the front right for the waste created by the pencil sharpener.  Both thsee aspects needed to work in unison for the print to be successful.  The pencil sharpener was a mass produced inexpensive plastic one which allowed the possibility of it being super glued into place or being slightly adapted to fit a specific place with regards to the print.

Time frame: Sixteen hours - given the scope and size of the print this is the minimum that would be required to make this print both robust and successful.
Size: The print was 140mm long and 130mm high including the wheels.   The base of the tractor was 40mm across.  The location hollow for the pencil sharpen was essentially a 30mm by 30mm insert into the base of the tractor. 
What we would do differently: Very little - two students have worked on a design for a considerable amount of time to rework, revise and produce something significant.

3D Printed Tractor Update - Spray Paint Preparation

Original Date of Print - 
23rd of October 2018. 
In this continued update of a print in progress, the student concerned completed the first attempt at using commercial spray print.     This print was always intended as a multi PLA project, and for a tractor theme with stationary storage.   The student concerned has been able to master 3D Printing in a short space of time and I was looking for a project that would push her and challenge her with her designs.    In addition looking for another way to extend students I delibrately used a pink PLA for the design (mixed with a gray) .  Finally we have been further experimenting with the use of a new super glue to look at bonding all the elements of the print together - which is appearing to have a better impact.

3D Prting Projects in the Work - Updates

Print Update - 'Weathering'
Original Print Date - 25th of September.    This print has now been on display at our school, in an outdoor setting, for an entire month.    It has been exposed to the elements (Winter in New Zealand).    During this time we have been monitoring the strength of the print and the discolouration (if any).    After one month there has been little of either and the print has maintained it shape and colour without any obvious signs of weathering.  This print is for an emergency assembly location.


Print Update - 'Spray Painting: Preparation'
Original Print Date - 23rd of October.   This is the 'tractor' themed stationary holder has now been partially assembled, with the intention of using commerical spray can paint to change the colour of the print.    It was also decided for the affect to print this in component stages and then use superglue to combine the elements of the print, as shown on the left.

3D Printed Advanced Themed Stationary Holder

Above: Base of the design shown above.

Challenge: Student looking to push themselves by producing an advanced multi-part desk stationary holder with a 'tractor' theme, personalised for the student that it was intended as a gift for.
Background: This student has completed a number of previous projects and was looking to extend herself by producing something significants with an original creation - she made the decision early on to create this project from scratch, not relying on prebuilt models of using freely available models - this proved to be challenging as she needed things to be relative to scale and also wanted it to have a purpose that it was able to store stationary.   The wheels had to look right, but we're required to work.  She originally created an 'all in one design' featuring all the wheels, lettering and scoop for the tractor in a single design.   This design didn't have the desired affect, as the wheels and the scoop suffered from being part of a single block.   When this was discussed with the student it was redesigned featuring components - the base shown above left, this had a much more polished affect that the student was very pleased with.  To put this in context this student is ten years old.

Left: The component pieces - shown in profile - a name label of the student that it was a gift for (bottom left).   The four wheels and the 'reverse' scoop (at the rear of the tractor).    The combined print time for these additional pieces of the project was four hours - this included the significant front scoop shown below.

Left: The front scoop, the dominating feature of the design of the tractor.   This was printed as part of the component pieces of the design, with the delibrate use of the grey PLA plastic to contrast with the base (see below).   This is the print prior to removal of the 'rafting' we try and always keep this to a minimum as it essentially the waste of the print, but at times it is unavoidable.




Level of Difficulty: High - it is slightly deceptive because while the print would appear straightforward it has been built from scratch and all of the component pieces need to work in relation to each other.   There are significant additional features related to the presentation of this piece - some of these had to be redesigned several times to ensure that they were completed to the students satisfaction.   It involved considerable design and reworking, testing and adapting - for this student the design stretched them to a considerable level and should be considered amongst the most difficult challenges for a ten year old student to complete.  In addition to all these considerations the bottom line was that the deisgn needed to be functional, as it had a specific purpose and needed to work.
Timeframe: Ten hours for the base, the foundation of the tractor and four hours for the additional parts to complete the design.  There was potential to modify this to reduce the time - a combined fourteen hours for the entire design, as it usual for projects featured on this blog a 8mm nozzle was used on the printer and the infill was 20% of the total print (these are the default settings essentially).
Size:    The base of the print 100mm long, 50mm across, 60mm high at the front.   It was 135mm high at the back.   The inside storage part of the base was 35mm by 40mm and 70mm deep.   The wheels were 20mm at the back and 10mm at the front.   The main scoop extended 70mm across from the back to the front.   The other additional features were relative to that.
What we would do differently/next steps for the students:
The student was fully extended by this task and completed it to the best of her abilities.  Her intention with the deisgn was to experiment with using spray paint to complete the design, otherwise the print design, conception and production was considered extremely successful.