3D Printed Customised Spider - Prototype

Challenge: As part of the art project that students are currently involved in the students are creating an original 3D Print to complement the wire art design.   

Background: This student in question with this design considered himself to be a capable student able to create unique designs from scratch and targeted producing a spider to work in combination with his art.    The student researched potential spiders that would be present on the plant and spent time researching the spider, before making a detailed sketch of its key features and likeness.    The student then switched to Tinkercad for the design of the animal.    The student used the main interface to produce the shapes and legs, as shown left.    One issue was discovered when the PLA support rafting was removed - the thickness of the legs relative to the main print caused on of the legs to snap off - which will need to be addressed by the student moving forward.   

There are a couple of options that we have used when this issue has developed previously, one would obviously to thicken the width and connection points of the legs - the second is to print the legs separately from the main print and attach them separately.

Level of Difficulty: High.   The student has had to conduct research into the insect/animal that they are printing spending time identifying its key features and sketching it in detail.  This detail has then been transferred across to Tinkercad taking into account the design of the arachnid to represent it correctly to scale.    This is going to take several reprints to correct the detail and address issues that have developed as a consequence of the print such as the issue that has been identified with the spiders legs.   This is the kind of project to challenge a confident student rather than to challenge someone just developing their ideas.   Student is eleven years old.

Size: The main body of the arachnid measures 12cm (120mm) long and was 6cm (60mm) across.  In addition to this the print was 50mm high.    This is actually considerably bigger than the actual size of this spider - the student had increased its size considerably and didn't realise that until the print was complete.

Timeframe: Two and a half hours - this is by far the largest print and subsequently had the longest time out of any of the projects in this sequence.  As noted the size of the spider is incorrect, and needs to be downsized meaning the print time will be subsequently reduced.

What we would do differently/next step for students: As noted there are issues with the print that needs to be addressed - not to sound repetitive but the legs and overall size.    The students has clear ideas about how to proceed with the decoration and additional features that might be added to the print.

3D Customised Art Insects

Challenge: For an art design project/sculpture project created by the students to create and 3D design an insect that would work in conjunction with the art display.

Background: Using an Ultimaker 2+ as a printing tool, using Tinkercad as a design tool the students first sketched a diagram of an insect that was related to a plant that they were making that was constructed from wire - for instance a dragonfly with a cactus.    The students in the classroom were confident with using the 3D Printer having completed the introductory tasks that are listed on this blog.   The insects were designed by the ten and eleven year old students using the basic interface design and additional tools.    Students were concentrating on producing a print that was to scale so the print time for all of the insects or animals described here did not exceed twenty minutes and some of the smaller ones were under ten minutes.    

The students brief was to use the 3D Printer to design the insect/animal and additional features of the insects would be added once the creations had been spray painted.    Some of the smaller aspects of the insects are going to be added using additional media, such as wire for the antenna.

Level of Difficulty: Medium there are a variety of designs and creations in this sequence all of which have slightly different aspects.   These designs were all created by students who have used Tinkercad before and were confident in their abilities.   The final design of the plants themselves (such as the cactus shown on the left) is still to be completed so the size o the plants may be altered.   

Size: All of the prints were as close to the possible of the size of the actual insect - so they ranged from a few centimetres to the largest in this sequence which was the dragonfly.   This was 10cm long.  Some of the smaller designs, such as the Ladybugs shown on the left were only two or three centimetres across.

Timeframe: These prints did not take the typical length of time that are listed on this blog, this is primarily because of the scale of them.   By far the longest in the set was the dragonfly which came in at fifty minutes, as mentioned the smaller ones in the series were under ten each.

What we would do differently/Next Steps for the students: Using spray paint to decorate a number of the insects will be key to finishing their details and design.    Once a base coat has been applied additional details can be added to finish the designs.  The students also have been challenged to produce the insects to scale to complete the art design so there is potential to adjust some of the prints - given the length of time for each one and the PLA involved this is not a particularly major deal.

Building Alterations: Air Extraction Duct

 

This was completed when we required to make some slight alterations to an external shed located at our school.   

We had to alter an outside shed to ensure that there was correct exhaust to operate one of our machines.   

As such the perfect opportunity arose to customise a piece for this by using our existing 3D Printer to create this object which we could custom make to complete the task.

The print was completed in two hours.

3D Printed Stationary Stand - Minimising the PLA Used

Challenge: For a student confident in designing 3D Printer to produce a stationary holder that required a minimum amount of PLA to be created.   This would require the component pieces to be thin to avoid excess use of the material.

Background: This student had produced a number of well designed and created 3D Prints and was confident in working independently.   The challenge to the student was to create a print that would minimise the use of the filament, to make something which a specific purpose using the smallest amount of filament that was possible.   The student created the 3D design and it was then sent back to the student to refine it to ensure that it was using the minimum amout of material possible.    The student was able to modify the design to meet this brief and also personalised it by including her name on it in a significant location and size.

Level of Difficulty: Medium - The student was adapting her design to ensure that a minimum amount of PLA (plastic) was used, this was in essence the purpose of the entire design challenge.

Size: The design measured 165mm across and was 140mm high.   The front storage was 30mm high and the main base of the storage was 60mm high and reflected the dimensions of the print.

Timeframe: Ten hours - while this may seem significant it should be noted that other versions of this print have been up to twice as long in terms of print and typically have been in the fifteen hour range, which has been reduced significantly.  Given the intention of the print and purpose of the print      

What we would do differently: Very little this print worked extremely well and the student involved felt that it had been extremely successful.   There was one side of the print that could have been made slightly thicker however the initial concern that it might split or break has yet to be realised.

Misc. 3D Printed Designs - Further first uses of 3D Printer

A basic plan used to celebrate the date.   The student wanted to create something simple to celebrate Mothers Day - which was able to be produced independently by a ten year old student who had worked with 3D Printers for the first time this year.

The print was a basic shape and measured 130mm across, was 80mm high and the base of the design was 10mm with an additional 10mm of the font and the heart.     

The intention from the student was to spray paint this to add a layer of decoration.   Three hour print.

This student wanted to create a personalised print to tie in with her dog, hence the bone design which was located as part of the Tinkercad main interface, and then text was added to the design before the print.

The student was able to print this design by following a basic Tinkercad instructional video which had previously been produced by other students.     

The print was 130mm long, was 40mm high at the end and 20mm wide in the middle.  The print was 20mm high and took two hours to print.

Misc. 3D Prints: Basic Designs - Further Development in 2021

Left: A recent variation of the 'name badge/name plate design'.   In this case the student decided to use a shout out/speech bubble as the background for the name of the person that it was designed for.    The design was a first for this student who was creating something independently (using video tutorials).   The basic design is low level introduction to 3D Printing. The design measured 170mm across and was 75mm high.   The width of the design was 10mm for the base and the lettering was 10mm further extending outside of the print.   The student is being challenged to produce/add to the print by using spray paint or other design aspects to complete the process.   One aspect of the design that could be further investigated in terms of use is to use the speech marks aspects of helping students with speaking prompts.   The time of the print is related to the use of the printer was four hours.   This was relative to the size - however the base of the speech bubble has a point to it as shown in the photograph, it will be interesting to monitor the length of time that it remains on the print.

Left: Another 'stationary holder' unit designed by a student who is developing their 3D Printing skills.   The student was wanting to developing a significant print and spend time decorating it and developing it further with the use of LED lights and spray painting.  The student designd a print that took thirteen hours to print, and there is an error in the design of the print - the tower at the front left has not been linked to the entire print, this means that this part of the holder will detach from the main print.   When the students has an opportunity they will break the tower off and then create an innovative way to connect it to the main print.    Otherwise the student has been wanting to print this for several weeks prior to be being completed.   While the design of the print is straightforward it has provided a link to more complicated and challenging prints.   This will be updated when the student has completed the decoration and presentation of the unit fully.

Left: Another variation of the basic design - this in particular is for a younger family member which was specifically designed with this in mind - however the biggest question will be over the lettering which would be more resilant if the lettering had been reduceded in height.

This project will require to an addition of painting and other decoration before it is completed.   It currently has dimension of 140mm across 120mm high and had a thickness (width) of 20mm.

 Further additions to this print will be made and documented.

Combining the 3D Printer and the Laser Cutter

One of the technologies that we have been always intending to integrate together has been the 3D Printer at the Laser Cutter.  At our school we are very lucky in addition to having mulitple 3D Printers we have a significantly large laser cutter at our school.   

One of the challenges that we have made to the students is can the laser cutter use MDF to cut and then we complete the project by using a 3D Printer to complete it.

This example has taken a theme that the students have frequently used and designed a stationary holder for the students work tools.    In this example the box has been made using the laser cutter and cut out of MDF.  The box shape has been designed to hold the students pen and pencils and the name plate then glued to the outside.  In the example the student has used a 3D Print of a name plate, one of the basic introductory tasks that the students complete when they first join the classroom.

The design in use can be shown on the left while in use.   The instructions for the plate printing follow very similar instructions that we have printed elsewhere on this blog, essentially following the badge/keyring/name plate template and instructions so we will note repeat them here.

One issue discussed with the student is how to finish the presentation - spray painting is the obvious example a layer of spray painting applied to the entire design would provide a seal for the MDF and in addition to this would combine both the laser cut and the 3D Print together.

This is a further development of a print that we have been developing and has previously been detailed on this blog.   The blog design featured a 3D Print that was a blue base - the intention with this has always been to use the 3D Print to produce the print but spend time creating and developing the art aspect of the print - spray painting it and adding additional features.    There are further elements to be added to this print before it is completed and it will be updated here further.