3D Printed Ongoing Projects - Golf Clips and Highland Cattle

We are looking at involving students in projects that get them excited but also can expand into the wider community so that our school, their students and projects can gain wider exposure.   One of our younger students has a passion and a lot of involvement in Golf, playing at the local club on a regular basis.

The student is a Y5 student (ten years old).

The student was looking for opportunities or ways to include some 3D Printing and involving golf.   The starting point for this came via Thingiverse - we have used this before as a source of inspiration but also allowed us to modify designs to personalise them and 
include a local aspect.   The local golf club for the student is Te Ngutu Golf Club here in Taranaki, New Zealand.   The student was able to produce a unique item (in this case a golf ball holder) that was able to be linked back to the club that the student plays at.   The intention is that this will act as a starting point for the student to get them into more unique and original projects.   There is also the potential for the student to look at personalising these items and selling them for a nominal fee.

Currently the two ball version of this print has a two hour print time.   There are additional designs with three and four ball variations which have a larger clip and as a consequence additional details or lettering could be added.  The student is intending to refine their design as they have been experimenting with the Golf Club aspect of the design which is not clear or detailed, particularly when the design has been spray painted.    It is a two hour print to four hours for the largest in the set.

A second student has a considerable interest in farming and farming related matters.   To encourage them and have them involved in creation we have again followed this format - the Highland Cattle design is an animal that the student does not have a model for and this model will be decorated via spray painting.  Including rafting the print took five hours and while there is no student input at this point we are again hoping that it leads to additional projects and work.

3D Printed Original Articulated Animals - Highest Degree of Difficulty

Challenge: To create and successfully print an original articulated animal of challenging design.

Background: The student who has been responsible for creating the original articulated animals including the Kiwi, the Lion and other animals featured on this print was looking for ways to extend her designs and her animals, one of the animals she felt could make a striking design.     She choose an Octopus for this purpose.   The challenge was based around the legs of the Octopus and have them interact with the body of the Octopus.   This took several versions of this print to get correct so the student was happy with it.

Versions one and two featured legs that didn't have the width to support the print and were too fragile and needed to be replaced.   The third completed version the student was more happy with - this however left her thinking about other design aspects - one was the length of the legs, the second was whether it was robust enough to allow it to be repeatedly handled.    Finally the use of the arms as they stand led the student to look into creating a hook for the Octopus so it might be easily hung from the roof and then sway in the wind.

Level of Difficulty: High - this was specifically to challenge this student who has shown a high degree of design, thinking - this was not for the faint heartened and nor was ever intended to be.   

Size: The main body of the Octopus was 60mm across and 45mm high.   The tentacles are currently 50mm long although as noted the student is examining options to develop this further.   

Timeframe: The final version of this print took three and a half hours, earlier versions which were not considered successful were one hour and two hours.   These resulted in the tentacles of the Octopus not being robust enough.   Even with a three hour print examining the eyelets of the tentacles they are looking considerably weak in locations.

What would we do differently/next steps for students: As noted the student has spent considerable time reworking this design at present and is continuing to refine and work on the design this student is showing an incredibly aptitude towards being creative and challenging themselves.    It is anticipated that she will rework this design again considerably.

However this is a student who is twelve years old working independently to an extremely high standard.

3D Printing Overtime - 3D Prints outside in the elements four years later

One of the longest running prints featured on this blog is one that dates back to August 2018.   At that point in time, as detailed on this blog we needed to create a print to replace the signage that was for our evacuation area outside.  Rather than replace the existing metal signs we thought that it would be worthwhile to 3D Print signage as we could customise it for our needs.

We have updated this print several times since then.  As previously mentioned it is placed in a location where the print has been exposed outside and now has been outside for four years.   During this time while we did have the issues with the colour fading, which meant that two years ago we took the prints down and resprayed them before putting them back in place.  

There is very evident weather of the prints which have remained intact and on display.  We will in all likelihood take the prints down again in the coming year and respray them again, however we can now say with confidence despite the challenging New Zealand outdoor condition there is no evidence of any of the printing/PLA suffering from the outside exposure.

Potential projects could therefore be based around using the PLA/3D Printer to manufacture or create items that are able to be deployed or used outside confident that the print will remain functional.

Original Articulated Animals: Further Designs

 

The Y7 student responsible for the recent production of a number of articulated animals has over the past week or so completed the design of a number in the series. 

In each instance she has followed a similar pattern she has located a pubic domain image of an animal (which has been source from a variety of internet search locations) once she has been able to import this into Tinkercad she has then applied the linking for the design (as followed initially via tutorial however she has since mastered this to the point she can complete it independently).  

Following this it is simply a matter of producing a 'test' print so that she has been satisfied with the linking (in some cases the location
has needed to be slightly altered).  This has allowed a final print to be produced.

The student regularly attends local craft market where she sells a range of goods that she produces herself (earrings, as has been featured on this site)

The school is arranging to make the snapmaker available for the student and the printers to be used with the PLA available as cost price and the student will be able to use the printers to manufacture items for sale.   This will in our opinion encourage the students creativity, expose the community to something unique that has been created by a student using technology at the school and provide them with an opportunity which they would not otherwise have had.

We are refining the prints during the holidays including looking at the student perfecting the linking and silhouette selection to allow them to produce a master set of unique, creative 3D Prints.

3D Printed Customised Electronic Protection Boxes

 

In the past we've been working on a variety of projects in New Zealand and used our 3D Printers to create customised perfect fitting containers or protection for electronic circuits.    

One of the advantages for this type of creation with 3D Printing is that the PLA has shown to not deteriorate over time, as is evidenced by our evacuation signs which have now been exposed to the elements as a 3D Print for several years, since 2018,  without any indication of damage or suffering the ill affects of being directly exposed to the weather.  This makes them ideal tools to create customised small scale boxes to house or protect elements of the 

We have been involved in a significant project locally focussing on using electronics and technology to improve the effectiveness of pest (predator) trapping in New Zealand specifically stoats and brush tailed possums.   This work is detailed on our other significant blog Soundluresnz.blogspot.com

This example is of a small electronic motor that needs to be able to be protected against the elements as it is part of a wider trap and circuit.   As our students are developing their details with the motor including adding additions to it we would be looking to use the printer to print its protection rather than buying something which would then become obsolete if we decide to adapt the box or the motor further.

We are continuing to refine this project as this is a prototype and we will be continuing to focus on using our 3D Printing capabilities to ensure that the overall unit can be completed, made weather tight and used to add value to the electronics component of the build and the project.

Original Articulated Animal Design: Butterfly

 Now that we have completed work on the school market day the students are looking at addressing projects from prior to this timeframe that require completion.   As noted the majority of the prints of animals for our market day were the articulated animals located on Thingiverse.    While these were a good starting point we wanted to look at developing our own prints.

As featured here on the site we have a number of students working on developing original prints, which was started by the kiwi.   In the same group was the butterfly.   This was attempted to be printed previously although we had a faulty part on the machine (since replaced) which has allowed the following to be completed.

The process for the design of the butterfly involved brainstorming the idea, the students had identified how to complete the linking via a tutorial video on Youtube.    The design for the butterfly was sourced online.

The print measured 120mm across and was 90mm high at the tip of the wings and 60mm high at the top of the abdomen.   The print was 10mm high and took three hours to print.   The linking was quite loose however it was effective and worked extremely well.  The student used the component stages and then produced the final print in Tinkercad before it was converted using the Snapmaker Luban software before being print.

Tinkercad as a design program for our students works extremely well.  We have used it for a number of years at our 1:1 iPad School.  The students predominantly use Apple Laptops to create the prints although we have some students who use iPads to create the design.   As a teacher I also think that Tinkercad has excellent Educator/Teacher interface and the ability to host a classroom in a easy and adaptable manner.  The classrooms at school have school accounts created and linked to them and the students are able to design and create and then easily share and modify their designs.

The student as noted in this case has been able to design the butterfly essentially from scratch and the student researched and identified the linking via youtube - and thus was able to present to the teacher the final print which was then able to be directly printed without any modification.    This student has shown creativity and invention with her work and had two years experience using Tinkercad and the Ultimaker printers that were previously in the classroom.   

Snapmaker as a printer also has software that is available that works in conjunction with the printer/Tinkercad to produce the final results.  Again the software associated with this is exceptional, easy to manipulate and develop and produces excellent result.

Key to the final product, and we have mentioned this before, is that there is literally zero waste that is produced as a result of the printing - and the consistency with the print job is fantastic.   The linking/print comes out as a single piece already linked and completed.   This allows the students to produce an eye catching and creative design finished to an extremely high standard.   This is an exceptional project and exceptional example of student creativity.

Market Day - Literacy Tasks for 3D Printing

One of the challenges of our recent market day with students was how we could use the 3D Printing aspect of their businesses but link it to another aspect of the curriculum.  One way that this was done was by having the students document the process that they were involved in to then write and explain the process.  This is an example of that - a noughts and crosses game board and pieces.

The student was able to use a number of screen shots to show the design process in Tinkercad to include the printed designs prior to their decoration by spray painting.   We also wanted to ensure that the students thought about the packaging that went with their products and included details (such as the small parts safety warnings and not selling them to students who were under three years of age).   In this example as it was a game we also insisted the students wrote the rules of the game and included them with the products. Logomaker.com was used to produce the design for the group.   This meant that the application of the 3D Printing and 3D Printer was wrapped around a number of aspects of the curriculum - in this instance the game board and pieces was a unique design that the student involved with personally designed.