3D Printing Junior Challenge: Introducing Scribble

This is the third in the series of recent 'Cookie Cutter' class project work.   School in New Zealand has now broken for the school holidays, we will be back in person in February, in the meantime we will be revisiting all of our 2025 project work and we have a range of prints and projects from the year which we we will be posting.   As always if you want to get in contact with the teacher who runs this blog you can do so by emailing him at myles.webb@gmail.com.

Challenge: For students to create an original, unique and working cookie cutter suitable for use.

Background: We have detailed this process over the past two days, detailing how the original inception and idea featured a tree shape.  

As the students started developing ideas a clear next step was going to be using the 'scribble' tool present in Tinkercad.   When selected with the students iPads it allows students to be able to freely draw on a seperate design page then bring this straight into Tinkercad.   This allows the students the ability to create a range of shapes and designs and the students have proven increasing adept at developing their skills to use this to produce different ideas.   In the case of this challenge the students started looking at traditional ideas and shapes associated with Christmas and then experimenting with them.  

Having already identified that early prints lacked a handle and tended to be too thin this student wanted to make sure that this print addressed both these potential issues.

Level of Difficulty: Low - this is a straightforward design that took the students a few minutes to independently produce as a eight year old.

Size: The print is 90mm wide 70mm high and has sides that are 10mm thick and 10mm high.

Cost: The print has a PLA use of 13g and an associated cost according to Bambulab of $0.31.

Timeframe: The print using the Bambu H2D took 38 minute to complete.   This makes this project an excellent challenge based around the concept of printing a class set or a large group of prints as the timeframe makes it somewhat realistic (with our classroom we are attempting to complete the entire run using a single printer over the course of a week at school)

What we would do differently/next steps for the students: The run of prints in this sequence were based around tree designs, this version was the first 'scribble' tool designed version and it was printed as it was intended to share with the students a different approach.   The handle while it is functional needs some more refinement.   The student also has created 'sections' for the hat that are quite distinct.  In testing when the students use the cutter to cut through the play-doh if the students cut right through it does not leave a single piece, but it leaves the design in two distinct sections - so the students need to engineer a solution to be able to  press it trough some of the way, but not completely through so the shape remains intact.    

This will be updated with further versions of this print later.   You can also see the 2025 Christmas themed slideshow featuring ten years of different Christmas Designs and Challenges for students by clicking on the link here.

3D Printed Challenge: School Micro Paperclip

 

Challenge: Our School Principal set a challenge to our students, to include in our school information pack for enrolments a paper clip or way to group four regular sheets of paper.

Background: This challenge was set by our school Principal at relative short notice, however it was one of the challenges that our students took to with speed and a design challenge that was impressive.

The brief was simple - for a paper clip or a way to puncture paper to group it together.     Our students had a class shared brief and were instructed to complete the design as quickly as possible - so we could start running prototypes and initial prints.

Tinkercad and the class page was of course the starting point for our students.   The design had two

particular points, 

The first is that the name of our school must be included in the design, Auroa School.   The second is that the design must be able to be hold the paper together securely.

One of the most fantastic aspects of design from Tinkercad is that there is a range of templates available for easy design that students can adapt.  In this case, without prompting a number of students located the 'simple bookmark' which was available via a search.   This design was the basis for the first two prints shown above left which were then developed in under three minutes or so by the students.

The next stage of the design is to challenge the students to develop their ideas and develop their creations that are unique.   An example is the t-shirt shown below.   The idea from the student is to copy the student uniform at school, and have a ability to lock the two items together forming the way to keep the paper in place.  The student is looking at ways to test the locking mechanism prior to printing.

Size: Both of the paperclips shown in the photo were 40mm across and 100mm and 120mm long.  The base of the design, which was the bookmark is only 3mm thick, this allowed it to be flexible but also have some strength.   The gold design had a head that was 10mm thick, the pink design which was the glow-in-the-dark filament was 5mm thick at the top of the design.  

Timeframe: Both of the designs took forty minutes to print.  Ideal for a group or class project when during the course of the next few days as many designs as possible can be completed.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students:   The next steps for the students to is to complete their designs, share them with the classroom and use this to encourage the designs from the other students.   Each student will essentially create their own individual bookmark, they will be presented to the Principal who will choose the design that best meets the intended brief, which we will duplicate copy, and each student will receive their own bookmark.