3D Printed Spinning Top: Follow Up

 

This is a follow up post about an activity that we have mentioned several times in the last week, and one that is working really well with students in terms of being practical and also achievable.

Credit where credit is due - Tinkercad the browser based software which our students do nearly all of their 3D designing on, in conjunction with their iPads.

One of the really interesting things that has come out of this challenge in terms of making physical spinners is that the larger spinners have not proved so far to be the most effective which has caused the students to consider the engineering aspect of what they have been making.

We are holding a competition this week where we are wanting students to spin against each other in competition aiming to last the longest with the best original design.   We will be adding this to our blog in due course in the meantime this is another video explaining this process and providing some demonstration of the students work:

Tinkercad Design Challenge: Spinning Top

 

We have spoken at length on this blog on the technology that the students use (iPads as we are a 1:1 iPad School and an Apple Distinguished School) and that on our iPads we primarily use Tinkercad for creation of 3D designs.

We also enjoy looking at the resourcing that is available on Tinkercad and one particular challenge at the moment has the attention and the imagination of the students.     

Under the resources tab on the Tinkercad website there is a range of challenges and activities for creation.   The 'spinning top' challenge is currently live, and will be until next month.  The template is available online which allows the students to build a design extremely effectively.   

Our students have spent time using the prototype and experimenting with different designs - the initial print is extremely reasonable timeframe which has meant that prototyping has been relatively easy.

The latest version designed by our students shown left took just over forty minutes to print.   It was completed using the Bambu H2D printer.   It measures 60mm in total length and is 30mm across.  The handle for the spinning is 20mm from the top.  

This design has taken an idea that the students like using motion to something practical that they are enjoying playing with as they discuss engineering ideas and we have tried to start conversations about the concepts of force, balance and personalisation and how this might affect how it works.   We are already talking about having some kind of competition to see how long the best designed and engineered spinning top is going to spin for (which of course will lead to discussions based around time and recording this accurately).

All things being equal during the coming week we will be able to print either a full set or very close to a full set of the student creations of these before we begin a testing process.