Junior Design Challenge: Physical TNT Combination

 

Challenge: For students to combine a physical novelty object with a second object created using Tinkercad.

Background: There were a number of objects that featured in our 2025 School Market Day, one of the most popular novelty items was a small TNT Minecraft box, that was a candle holder.  It had been located from Thingiverse where it was available as a free download.  We used it in conjunction with the Glow-in-the-dark-PLA.

In this challenge we gave the students a physical copy of the TNT which is 20mm by 20mm.   The students were challenged to use this item to then create an original item to work in conjunction with the item.   Initially a lot of the students tended to just copy the TNT rather than having an object work in conjunction with that - we highlighted the examples and encouraged the students to think outside of the box.

The first range of designs were typically as shown left.   The actual TNT is shown on the right, with the students interpretation of it shown on the left.   The dimensions are close however the student could have further refined the design and put more details into it.   

The student also chose to make the copy instead of looking at ways to have the object interact with something else.

The student shown left used a basic design and then added several other aspects to it.  The original TNT is the orange design in the middle of the picture.  The seven year old student then added the 'pac-man' like figures to the left and the right of the TNT box before then adding another layer, the red TNT which can all be seen in the photograph.

The student could have put additional time into the designs and improving the scale and composition.

Further development was shown when students moved to creating something that combined different elements.   Obviously shown left is the TNT at the base of the design and then bridge was created over the top of it, with a further detail that two cars from the main Tinkercad interface were added.

This activity is being added to the 'non 3D Printing' Tinkercad design challenges that are featured on a slideshow that is located on the blog here.

Market Day Exemplar: Bath Toys

 Challenge: Using creativity, innovation and personalisation students from a Y3/4 classroom create a unique product for our school market day.

Background: This group had a number of challenges that occurred during the project.   When we started brainstorming ideas as we have established a standard PLA default infill of 20% means that nearly all basic designs will float - and motion can easily be achieved.  As documented in the past we had a 'flying' butterfly that was created and used in 2023 as documented on this blog

There was several attempts and versions of this project to try and get the designs to the point that the students were happy with it and ultimately they were not able to achieve this.   The pivot that took place at the last moment with this was to revert to a design that was located online (Thingiverse again as we had done with locating material related to Minecraft with the nightlight.)

This meant the students were able to meet the obligations for the school Market Day (based on the orders that they had received) and produce a print that met expectations of the product.   They had to move away from the larger designs which they had been working on, which had limits to its ability to be water tight.   

Level of Difficulty: Low- the group spent several months working on this design and ultimately opted for essentially a design that someone else had created.  Ideally they would have gone through the process of linking and used this for their own design.  The students did alter some of the designs (including adding a top hat for instance as shown in the photograph below).

Size: We marketed three different sizes of print based around the printing time there the units took between one and three hours to print.  The smallest print had 70mm tentacles and a 30mm head put to the larger print which had 100mm tentacles and a 50mm head.   We were limited with the number of large prints that we were able to produce.

To enhance the presentation of the units for sale on the Market Day the decision was made to display the units in a small glass fish tank that allowed the units to 'float' and be on display.

Cost/Profit: We looked at marketing the large Octopi for $3.00 and had a estimated cost to produce of $1.70.   With hindsight these could have been price higher as we found that something of a demand for them, and of all them were sold out in a short space of time when the event started.

The medium and small prints made a relatively smaller profit, again we would probably have charged a larger amount for these as they sold our quickly.

Timeframe: Three hours for the largest Octopus, two hours for a medium and one hour for the small.  We needed to produce a large amount of these designs so printing 

What we would do differently/next steps for the students: This has been more or less addressed in the course of the post, as noted.   The linking would have been the biggest long term aspect of the designs, but while the group investigated they decided against it.

As a reminder you can search this blog for the project by searching for 'Octopus' or 'Bath Toys'.

Market Day Exemplar: Minecraft Night Light

 

Challenge: Using creativity, innovation and personalisation students from a Y3/4 classroom create a unique product for our school market day.

Background: This Market Day 2025 item started off early with a combination of Minecraft and the use of glow-in-the-dark PLA filament which we have experimented with in the past.  As noted over time the filament has improved significantly and we have seen improvement in the colour options available and the ease at which printing can be completed (which historically in our experience was not always the case).   You can view previous glow-in-the-dark prints here such as 2018 Glow-in-the-dark horse or 2022 recap of previous Christmas decorations of which the glow-in-the-dark has featured significantly.    You can look on the tab labelled 'Guide/Special Projects' for the full range of these activities or use the search bar for activities tagged with this label.

In this instance the students also wanted to organise objects that they associated with Minecraft and while they initially attempted to recreate some of the designs, and were relatively successful they also quickly located a number of items that were available on public domain sites - primarily Thingiverse

The process involved the students locating the items that they were interested in, considering if it was a viable print or not - and experimenting with different elements.   Originally early versions of the project (in May) had a laser cut box underneath the base.   Later on as the students developed ideas the decision was made by the students to use additional boxes of TNT to raise the base off the ground.   Personalisation which was a major feature of the Market Day 2025 Projects was addressed by having a gap between the TNT and Minecraft logo.  Development in June saw the students experimenting with different PLA for the names and displays and using AR/VR to project additional items onto the stand.

Level of Difficulty: Low - the emphasis was on the layout for the designs, the students were able to use designs that were available and the creation of the names to be inserted into the design was someone that the seven and eight year olds were easily able to create, test for the size for the unit and put it together - there had to be some variation for the number of letters of students in their name, which required larger lettering.

Size: The wooden base for the stand was 140mm across.   The standard sword designs were 80mm and the TNT was a 20mm cube.

Cost/Profit: For a standard nightlight we used four TNT boxes - each one was just under 0.20c to produce on the top and three underneath - a total of $1.40.   The sword was close to 40c as was the Minecraft and name plate.   In total assuming the MDF for the base of the print was $1.00 - the entire print could be produced $3.60.   We used standard LED lights available from a local dollar store which cost $4.00.   This gave the project a total of just over $7.50 - and the students decided the cost per unit and wanting to make a small profit that they would set a price of $10.00.   As we have mentioned throughout the process it was not intended as a profit making process - it was focussed more of the three aspects of innovation, creativity and personalisation.

Timeframe:  The stand took ten minutes to print, the TNT was 45 minutes per box on the Snapmaker.  Each of the three additional elements on the stand took just under one hour - the entire print was able to be completed in approximately seven hours, this was done on the Snapmaker and thanks to the extensive testing that we have been completing comparing machines we would anticipate if this was done on the Bambu H2D we would anticipate it would take half of the time.   Once the elements had been produced we also required to glue them into place using a universal plastic glue.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the students: The students experimented with creating their own designs however they were never satisfied with the details that they were able to produce.  This product took a considerable amount of time to produce but was sold out in the process and we could have produced more.  The LED lights were sourced locally from a dollar store a better long term plan would have been purchasing them online from an overseas supplier.

Minecraft Vs. Tinkercad Part Three

 

During our School Market Day 2025  one of our groups spent time working on producing iPad and iPhone designs using the main template that is available on Tinkercad.

The personalisation occurred because we were able to use Tinkercads App to create virtual versions of the print and then sent them to the potential customers as an order.

You can view the post about that on this blog here.

We have also posted about other learning activities with the students involving the creation of using Tinkercad to create Minecraft versions of the equivalent animal or design.

You can see this example of the activity here.

It was also intended to do the inverse of this activity - that is to use Minecraft to complete a copy of a design that had been created by Tinkercad.

The example is from the iPad group shown above.   The iPad design shown in the advertisement was taken from the poster that students created to advertise their project with the original Tinkercad design.

The screenshots shown left are a Minecraft interpretation of the Tinkercad iPad design.

The student was able to use a variety of block colours to put together a 'life sized' version of the iPad stand.

The creation was completed during a three quarters of an hour session in regular class time.

The student could have looked to put additional details into the colour matching of the project but was happy and able to replicate the details in a way that reflected the design.

Market Day 2025 Exemplar: Light Box

 

Challenge: Using creativity, innovation and personalisation students from a Y3/4 classroom create a unique product for our school market day.

Background: You can follow the origins of this project by looking at the initial design concept, which was created in March 2024.   The design at this point was the laser cut box without the 3D Printing combination.   When initial ideas for the group were discussed one of the points of interest was a jar with multicoloured LED - with the 3D Printer used to create the bracket to hold the light in place.   This was published on  this blog as part of the Market Day 2019 posts on this site, which is located here.

The students had brainstormed ideas around different aspects of the light - however as we had been experimenting with glow-in-the-dark projects in the classroom the link between this and the light box seemed obvious.  We have used various PLA Glow-in-the-dark filament since 2018 on this blog and since then the quality of it and the ease of use  has improved significantly - we were reluctant to use it when first starting as it tended to up somewhat unreliable and could at times block the printer heads (particularly it seems if it was not air tight sealed).

The laser cut file for this project was supplied by a student who created the original in 2024.   The students from the classroom then used this file by including the name of the person who wanted to purchase it on the outside.

This was designed in Tinkercad and was a straight forward design for the students who were able to do so independently.    The decision on the size of the lettering was determined by the number of the letters contained in each students name.

Level of Difficulty: Low - the 3D CAD design for the project was a simple series of steps.   The design for the box came from a former student was created using Sketch Up and again was relatively simple - a rectangular box with inserted circles as shown in the picture left.

Size: The box was 120mm high and 80mm wide.  It took ten minutes to laser cut using 3mm MDF wood.   The size of the 3D printing element of the project varied depending on the number of letters in the purchases name, in this example the lettering was 40mm and 120mm high.

Cost/Profit: We estimated the box to cost $1.50 of MDF, the 3D Printed PLA was $1.50 (approx.) the most significant cost of the entire project was the LED lights in this case they were purchased from a local dollar store which cost $4.00 although with hindsight this could have been ordered online from overseas produces of material such as Temu.  In the Market Day this year the students were able to sell ten units of this project - at $7.50 per unit for the total sales of $75.00.

Timeframe: As noted ten minutes for the laser cutting.   Each of the panels of took just under one hour to print using the Snapmaker 3D Printers.   The total time for the production of each unit also included PVA wood glue which was applied to the box after it had been completed 

What we would do differently/next steps for the students: The Market Day for 2025 was held in the evening when it was not dark, the students noted that if they had been able to produce a box or another way to view the box with the glow-in-the-dark elements working so it was more obvious - some people viewing it during light hours missed the significance of how it displays (which is essentially it glows throughout the night, particularly with the LED light glowing.

You can view further details on this project by using the search tag 'light box' and the search bar on the right hand side of this page.

Market Day 2025 - Official School Video

 

3D Printed Night Light V3 - Market Day 2025

These night lights were design using Tinkercad and were a senior item for our school Market Day 2025.

Students started with a cylinder design and then used Tinkercads  the scribble function to create the cut outs that were then introduced to the side of the design - this allowed the students who are nine and ten years old to create unique and personalised designs and art for the shapes.

The project was then printed using the Schools Bambu H2D Printer - this machine was able to create the project with the fine details which allowed the limited rafting in each of the inserts to be removed without compromising or damaging the overall print.

The process was able to be completed by a group of students who were able to produce a range of designs.   Students also used the Tinkercad shape menu to add in shapes into the design.

With a light inserted into the design from the top the shapes within the design create a range of light.   

The prints took just over two hours each and were 120mm high and 90mm wide.   For the print examples shown lime and brown Bambu PLA was used.

For the display on Market Day the designs were further developed by the students using crochet to create ways for them to be hung - as shown in the photograph on the left.   

The designs were created independently by students who have had previous experience with 3D Printing whose designs have previously been published on this blog such as these Junior School challenges from 2024.

We held our School Market Day 2025 yesterday and have a significant amount of material related to the event which we will be posting over the coming days.