Roland Versa Sign Maker + iPhone Stands

 

We have detailed in depth the iPad and iPhone stands being developed by one of the groups of students who are seven and eight for our 2025 Market Day.

When we have been looking at finishing we have the products that we have left as there were removed from the printer, but we also have been experimenting with adding details or depths to prints.

In these examples here we have started looking at how we can add or enhance the presentation.   This question arose because with the Market Day we have several businesses that have asked for  themed iPhone or iPad stands.

Some of the logos and the details for the business have proven to be challenging to accurately recreate using the design features of Tinkercad.   The solution for the students was to switch to using the Roland Versa Sign Maker.   

This machine has its own tab on the blog feature some of the ways that we have used it with the students.   Essentially one of the functions of it is to create quality vinyl stickers which can then be applied to a surface, in this case the PLA which has been made via the 3D Printer.   The sticker is able to be printed via a .PNG file or a .JPEG.

In the examples shown we have used the logo of a local school and an online business.    For an additional feature we used QRMonkey.com to create a unique QR code which was also applied to the stand, which is shown on the front on the wedge and also at the back at the bottom of the print.

The stickers applied to the designs need no additional finishing and expected to remain on the stand long term.   They have been previously applied to a variety of surfaces such as laptops, metal water bottles etc and they have maintained their integrity despite being placed on a high use device.

AR/VR Exemplar - TInkercad #tinkercadhunt

 

While this site started as an example of 3D Printing as we have mentioned in the past it has evolved over time to include a range of technology related ideas.

We've primarily used Tinkercad for our design with the students and looked for examples and ideas in ways we can use it or similar programs.   This slideshow below is a range of further examples using the AR/VR button from Tinkercad to create and design objects and then place them into a scene.  This was completed by seven and eight year old students.

Tinkercad -AR/VR #Tinkercadhunt

 

We have recently had a major event at school our Pet and Calf Day.  As part of the day the students from the school create a diorama of a scene, which is created by each of the senior students at Auroa Primary School.

Our junior class went to view the displays and while we were there we came up with a challenge for our students - design something that looks like it could be part of the display in Tinkercad and then add it into the display using the Tinkercad App and its AR/VR option.

This challenged our students to think on their feet because they had not viewed the displays in-depth before the task.   They also had a limited design time and needed to see what they could make.  In the example at the top of the post the students added the snowman at the front left to fit in with the Christmas theme.

Another student choose the same scene, the same perspective and added a different figure at the same point, the cartoon inspired Christmas Tree shown left.   In both examples students had to create the design to be inserted as they were sitting in the classroom looking at the displays so they had a very short design time.

Sometime they also had to manipulate the design so it appeared more natural with the setting and in the rest of the display.

The bright colours and the figures in the diorama also lent themselves to this task.   In the example that is shown left the student added a wheel or as they described it a pizza between the two figures on the stage.

The student felt that it looked realistic and fit with the rest of the display.

This task allowed an entire class of students to create something and be able to submit it that morning and challenged them to share ideas and quickly think on their feet to use the environment.

In the image shown left, this is the same diorama from another viewpoint.  This design had the colour that the student wanted and felt that it would be a suitable environment to 'hide' an object.

They choose to add a rabbit which is located to the left of the waterfall.

The choose a colour which made the rabbit stand out, and then also related the rabbit to a series of books with a similar theme that they have enjoyed which is the 'Where's Wally?' books.  Creating a character this is repeatedly hid in a variety of locations.

The student responsible for this creation here really extended herself and excelled.   She looked at the original presentation and decide the best way to hide an object was to mimic one of the existing objects.   

She created a mushroom, designed it as she felt the originals looked and then coloured it with the same colour scheme as the other mushrooms that are shown in the scene.   In this instance her creation fitted seamlessly and was extremely difficult to identify and spot.

We have previously on this blog identified a range of ways to use Tinkercad to create and design, but not necessarily 3D Print.  That slideshow can be accessed here.

3D Printed Hinge + Further Dolls House Finishing

 

Its been one of our key projects this year, the Schools Dolls House, including 3D Printed furniture that was designed via Tinkercad.

Below this post you can see the overview slideshow of the entire projects.   The additional features recently added includes the framing around the windows, a balcony above the door and the steps leading up to them.

The major adjustment is the roof.   The initial roof when the project started was closed over and permanently fixed.

To allow the roof to swing open in two parts a hinge was printed used the 3D Printer, the Bambu H2D.   The hinge is shown left in full fixed location.

The 3D Printer can of course be used to customise hinges of any size.

The PLA with the print allowed it to be open and closed with the flexibility created by the plastic.

The print time for the hinge was under thirty minutes.  There are a number of freely available hinges online.

The hinges can be seen in the photograph left - with the roof open to allow access to the inside of the Dolls House.

As we have previously noted the final step is the use of the Roland Versa Sign Maker the intended use of this is for the decals on the floor and the walls.   It could also be used to decorate the outside of the house.

The full project including the work on the furniture can be view in the slideshow below.

Using Tinkercad with AR/VR

 

We have spoken at length on this blog over the length of time that it has been running, about how we are using Tinkercad extensively (and essentially exclusively for our 3D design and CAD creation) with our students and their iPads.

We have spoken at length and provided examples of how we have also been using it as a design tool, which hasn't always led to 3D Printing.

At the moment Tinkercad has an exceptional series of challenges for part of Tinkercad TInktober.   These are excellent design challenges which the students have enjoyed attempting.

It also inspired our students to look at other similar tasks.  This afternoon when we were looking to experiment again with using AR/VR students located the 'skeleton' elements using the main Tinkercad interface.   By putting them together in the order a Skeleton was created which the students then looked to use the iPad Tinkercad App to project it onto a number of locations.   In this instance it has been created bigger than a classroom.

3D Printed Project: Junior Evolution of Progressions

 

In March of this year we started the process of preparing for Auroa Primary School  Market Day 2025 with the concepts of innovation, personalisation and creation coming to the fore.   In this instance one of the groups decided to work on bath toys.

They used Tinkercad to create independent designs and then created a variety of tests for the prototypes to ensure that they met the brief and were correct.   You can follow the early progress and ideas formation by clicking on this link - or using the 'search' option on the right hand side and using the keyword 'Octopus'.

While we knew the floating aspect of the design would work the students wanted to explore balance and stability.  This has come up in the past with our work on 3D Printed boats and other objects - you can read details of the post about this challenge here.

This final design shown left met many of the design briefs - and students used it in their AR/VR focus and creation for the business.   However the base of the designs created some challenges for the students.   They attempted to water proof the designs using spray and hot glue gun and tried to consider design solutions while maintaining the shape.  The design in this format 90mm across at the base, 90mm high at the top of the hat.   Essentially in this format the print was either two or four hours depending on the machined.    

A variety of shapes this size were used - and while they met the floating brief - the designs were not waterproof.   Finally as noted with the boat design the base of the design needed to be expanded to ensure that the print didn't tip as soon as it was placed in water.  Initially the students added several elements to the shapes, monocles, ribbons, bowties - however when discussed a young child potentially could break some of these elements off, so as the designs were refined a lot of these elements were removed.   

The solution that the students came to was to look at the PLA that was used for printing.   Interesting the students were able to identify that the basic colours appeared to seal better at the base of the design than colours such as the silk (multi-coloured).   Examples such as the one show left were shown to remain buoyant after days of testing although they were somewhat unbalanced.

The design shown left took forty minutes to print using the Snapmaker machines and measured 30mm across at the base and was 25mm high.   The design was put in water as noted - and while it did not sit perfectly the students felt it passed the purpose test as a working bath toy.

However students felt while it was adequate they still felt that it lacked the dynamic impact of some of the elements that they had seen in flexi-animals and wanted to look at some way to increase the size of or the details around the tentacles.     This Octopus which we first attempted in 2022 was something of the inspiration - and while we have had students working on flexi aspect of the design these students have not, and the timeframe for the completion of the designs meant that feasibly the skill would take longer than is practical.

The solution that the students came up with was to redesign the Octopus placing the emphasis on the tentacles and producing a more clearly flat design.   They wanted to locate a design that already featured the tentacles and use their knowledge that they had developed to work on the head of the octopus and included in that personalisation for the customers who had indicated .

This meant that they moved in the direction of a more standard design.  This was highlight by various designs that had linking completed and were flexi animals.  This is something that we have spent considerable time on in the past developing and exploring ideas such as this.   

In this example shown left the students attempted to redesign the animal with the emphasis now (clearly) shown to be on the tentacles.  In this first attempt a prior example was used and the student made a basic attempt to alter the dimensions of the print.  This is the black design shown above.

This was not successful as the print did not have the depth to allow the linking to work successfully.   This print originally took forty five minutes.  A revised print took one and a half hours.  The revised version is shown left which included raised 10mm tentacles which when removed from the plate flowed and showed movement when placed in water.   The students determined that with the action that they would expect to see in the form of movement in the bath that the 'swimming' motion would appear with the tentacles of the octopus moving - the head or body creating the buoyancy.

The final step for the students now that the finished design has been determined is to include the personalisation and the features that the students previously experienced with the early designs.   

Ideally the students will also experiment with and develop their design skills with the linking, time permitting.    Finally to note the students involved in this process are Y3 and Y4 students from our school.  This means that the students involved are seven and eight years old who have been using Tinkercad for either one or two years in the classroom.
      

Market Day 2025 - General Stock Items

 

Market Day 2025 - Stock Filler Items

In addition to the significant items that the students are producing for this event we are also looking at producing multiple copies of smaller ideas that can be used as a fundraiser on the night.

We have detailed this process in numerous posts on this blog and won't repeat those posts however they are linked here.

In this instance a basic badge design has been created using a regular template for the local rugby club.   To add some extra dimension to the print the print has been repeated in different colours in glow-in-the-dark filament.

The lettering has been sunken down into the print to allow it to be as robust as possible.   The print dimensions are 60mm by 60mm and is 10mm wide.  This has meant that using the Snapmaker machines the print time has been just over one hour.    

The cost for each of the units based on the use of 16.1g of a filament is approximately 65c (NZD) this is based on the use of 5.4m of filament and it being at a regular price of $40 per kg roll.     This would mean that the price point for the product would be set above this and the difference would be the profit.

Based around our experiences with the PLA and previous prints we would expect it to last for a number of years (the oldest prints on this blog still in use are now in use for over eight years as detailed on this blog)