3D Printed Miniature Storage

 

Challenge: For an eight year old student with limited Tinkercad ability to produce something personalised and unique.

Background: As per the description this student has had some experience in using Tinkercad, in the class this year as part of the new cohort of classroom students.  The students prior to the School Holidays were given the option of producing something personalised and unique which they were tasked with designing in their own time.

This student wanted to make something as a gift for another member of their family.  They used their iPad and the Tinkercad app to project the image onto their desk in the classroom to check its viability.   Following this process the design was then submitted to the classroom teacher for printing.  The teacher responsibility was to insert the file for printing.

When it was printed the decision was made to use the silk eSun multi-coloured PLA to create something of an affect with the printing process.

Resources used to complete this print: iPad, Tinkercad App,, eSun Silk Multicoloured, Bambu H2D.

Level of Difficulty: Low - this is a basic design that the student was able to produce confidently by themselves.  This is a variation of a basic design that the student was able to manipulate to expand the design.  Design basics like making the name inserting it into the back of the design as a hole instead of extending out are design features that really add depth and finish to the students 3D designs.

Size: The print measures 80mm across and was 40mm wide and the print extends a further 30mm at the back.  The print in general has a width of 5mm.

Cost/Price: The print is miniature in scale.  It used 28g of PLA to complete the print.  This gave the print a price point of $0.70c to produce the item.

Timeframe: The print had a total completion time of 53 minutes in total.  This included 47 minutes of printing time for the project and six minutes of warm up time for the machine.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students:   This unit was produced in miniature and could be potentially expanded larger to scale.  The front of the design currently is essentially blank but could have had another picture, image or writing included (as per the top picture0.   At this stage the student felt that this would be an excellent jewellery box.   We have a range of previous designs - an exemplar of note from 2017.  In addition you can search the blog with our eleven years of examples by using some keywords in the top right hand corner of this blog.  We have tried to tag prints as accurately as possible.

3D Printed Jewellery Business: Progression

 

We have a School Market Day approaching in October 2025.    As part of the process our students have spent time designing and using our technology to create a range of products.   As detailed previous Market Days can be viewed here.

One of our business ideas was to use Tinkercad to create original 3D Designs which they then could 3D Print.

In the instance shown left the students from our junior school had a discovery time, where they were creating a range of beads and forming a bracelet.  We were able to use the lettering shown left and combine it with the objects and the material that was supplied.

The pink lettering shown in both examples are our students using their 3D Printed Glow-in-the-dark filament.   This provided beads with an additional feature in that it could glow in the dark.

The feedback from the students, in this case junior students (new entrance who are five years old) helped our business students think about design options and how they might improve their product.   They wanted to look at including their own versions of the art blocks (the flowers shown left) that fill out some of the design.   After seeing the examples they again used the scribble option from Tinkercad to create their own take and examples.   These were able to be done quickly and independently by the students concerned.

As shown in the bottom left photograph.   The students also recognised that they could pass on their creations to other students in the classroom who could help with the shapes and the details.  Not all of the designs were able to translate well to printing.

We opted to print in two different colours, using a mixture of red and blue PLA to see which would stand out more.   Some of the designs shown left could be easily recognised, others require more of an interpretation.   The default settings for the printing mean that we are using a regular nozzle etc - but realistically increasing the fine details would not translate to a better print.

3D Printed Junior Progression: Jewellery

 

Background and Details: Market Day 2025 Project

It started with a brainstorming session for students for this years 2025 School Market Day which has the themes running through it of personalisation and innovation.

As we have students who have proven to be adept and enthusiastic 3D Printers we researched different ideas related to this.   One group of students found the example shown left, which they felt would be in their skill range, and would be feasible to produce using our Schools 3D Snapmakers via Tinkercad.

However when tasked with consider the personalisation thats where the students then developed the idea further.

By using the main Tinkercad interface there is a cube shape available as one of the major design shapes.,  Combining this with the adding of text easily allowed the students to insert their names onto each of the blocks to form a series.     This allowed the clear personalisation that is one of the goals.

The next step was to get the students to consider how they could expand on this and push their designs further.   They had the ability to create something detailed and effective by using the 'scribble' icon that we have used constantly in the classroom, this allowed the students to create images that in turn could then be converted in printable images that could be inserted onto the blocks.   

The combination of both allowed the creation of beads that were personalised with the students name and then interspaced with the beads that had the illustrations on them.

The size of the beads was relatively small, being essentially 1.5cm cubes so that the print time for each one was approximately 15 minutes.   

Further experimenting will be completed with these designs, as they currently can be made out but require additional refinement to ensure that they have clarity as is the case at times with the details in 3D printing we typically use the default setting of 'fast' to ensure that the task can be completed and at times the accuracy for the prints may not be there.   

The practicality is that we typically share the machines with other students and classrooms and we need to consider that in both the size and the frequency of our printing.

We also have the opportunity to look at using filament that is different in its composition, the students have expressed a desire to work with different colour combinations including metallic and rainbow prints.   This will be further expanded on in upcoming prints and projects as we approach Market Day,

3D Printed Projects: Market Day 2025

 

We are looking at ways for students to think about how they can adapt designs for our 2025 School Market Day with the two key components that we are looking for - innovation and personalisation.

In an example shown left the NBA logo and badge was printed out (by a student) with a design that was available as an .stl file on a free website.    

This led to the question being posed how it could be personalised or localised and the result was the student developed a version for his local rugby club based on the design.    Each of the prints took approximately two hours to print and the larger print was 140mm square, the Coastal Rugby was 100 square.   We are encouraging the student concerned to consider how they could add detail (such as develop the rugby ball part of the design, thing about the font and how it looks) and improve its presentation.  We have created versions of this print on many occasions such as this oversized keyring from 2019 or these versions which featured on this blog in 2018.     We also know from experience that these prints have an extremely long life as a working print (as opposed to an MDF type keyring) as evidenced by our update from this year when we identified after seven years of daily use the 3D Print was still maintaining its shape and form.

Another of our groups is looking at necklaces and jewellery as a product.  Again we want to pose the question to the students - where is the innovation how can the print be personalised?

In this instance the student wanted to make a series of message beads that is items that could be linked together that spelt out a unique name.   The student took a regular shape from Tinkercad introduced a letter and additional shapes on it (which used the Tinkercad draw feature) and then hollowed each one out so it could be used and strung together.   The student is now experimenting with the different ways to decorate the top of the beads and also look at what the size that best fits the purpose of.   The example shown show shapes that are 20mm by 20mm.   There is also a range of options that are created for this by different use of filament.

We have spoken how flexi-animals or variations of them have proven to be some of the most enduring ideas and prints that have been created by our students.

We have had previously students create significant media and material related to the process who have moved onto higher schooling - however we asked these students to create unique tutorials to document the process using the 'flipped learning' pedagogy and it was this material that has been used by our students in 2025 to create a range of original designs. 

We have a range of students completing designs in this area - one such example shown above has been a student who is looking to create some form of pendants or jewellery with a star as the basis, and is currently working on her linking.