Transcript Designing and Making

TECH CENTRE CASE STUDY
With thanks to
Teach Design ltd
3D printing at KS5
Students at Clevedon School in have been using 3D printers for a number
of years, by the time students reach KS5 they are familiar with the process
of designing and printing 3D objects. The use of 3D printers has become
an integral part of many Product Design projects undertaken by the
students, it has become a “normal” technique in their “toolbox” of skills.
This has meant that students have incorporated 3D printed parts into their
project work where the process is most appropriate rather than using it as
an end in itself.
CubeX and Cube 3D Printer
ClevedonTech Centre
by Mr D White(Coordinator)
May 2014
Considerations
1. As the 3D printing was part of the student’s OCR
Product Design “coursework ”projects it was
essential that students used the process to enhance
the quality of their work rather than just provide a
way of getting machinery to do the work for them. A
simple rule of thumb was applied… Parts could only
be 3D printed if there was no other method of
making available to the students.
2. With 3D printing being so quick and easy to do
the students needed to think carefully about how to
keep a record of their designing and processing of
files to make their parts to ensure that they get
credit for their work within the marking criteria.
Presenting this work within a limited number of
pages in their design portfolios required careful
consideration.
3. Who takes responsibility for the printing? With so
many students needing to produce parts for their
projects it was quickly realised that the only way to
proceed was for students to do the printing
themselves rather than rely on teachers or
technicians doing it for them… all we needed was a
“check in” system to ensure that everything had
been set up correctly.
4. Time… with so much printing going on we started
to get a backlog of projects and the students at
other key stages were missing out. We needed to
get a balance between “teaching time” and
“production time”, we adopted a booking system
that prioritised teaching and learning during the
school day and the production of parts for projects
was often done overnight. For a few weeks our
machines were running 24 hours a day.
@ Teach Design 2014 | Company No. 08388797 | Vat No. 163 3794 90 | [email protected]
Exemplar Project 1
Amy- Martial arts trainer
The brief for this project was to design and make a portable
training/teaching aid for a local martial arts club.
Designing and Making
The project was designed using Autodesk Inventor.
Component parts were exported as .stl files and
processed using CubeX software for 3D printing
using the CubeX printer.
Mixed materials
To ensure that the project gained marks in the “making”
section of the marking criteria Amy ensured that she
incorporated a variety of different materials and processes.
Initially the base connector was made using a welded metal
plate this distorted due to uneven heating. Amy therefore
substituted this with a foldable tripod utilising 3D printed
parts
@ Teach Design 2014 | Company No. 08388797 | Vat No. 163 3794 90 | [email protected]
Exemplar Project 2
Danny- iPad Tripod Mount
The brief for this project was to design and make a
universal tripod mount for use in classroom
observations.
Designing and making
Danny designed the tripod mount using a variety of
software packages. The main structure and 3D
printed parts were designed using Autodesk
Inventor. The laser cut parts were designed using
2D Design.
Tolerances
One of the key parts of Danny’s design is the quick
release mechanism using a dovetail fitting. The two
parts needed to be made to ensure a good fit. The
slope of the wedges being in two different planes
meant that it would have been a difficult part to
manufacture using subtractive CNC machines
Embedded parts
Several parts required thumbscrews and threaded holes. Danny included hexagonal holes in
these parts to embed steel nuts and bolt heads. These were printed slightly under size, the nuts
were warmed and pressed into the printed parts to ensure a good fit.
@ Teach Design 2014 | Company No. 08388797 | Vat No. 163 3794 90 | [email protected]
Exemplar Project 3
Emily- Drink Storage for Playgroups
The brief for this project was to design and make a
safe storage system for water bottles at a playgroup.
The children would have to be easily able to identify
their own bottles.
Designing and Making
Emily designed this project using Autodesk
Inventor.
The bottle lids were exported as .stl files for
processing in the CubeX software and 3D
printing.
Laser cut parts were exported from Inventor
as 2D .dxf files.
Bottle Lids
Children sharing drink bottles is a possible health hazard. The children at the playgroup
needed an easy way to identify their own bottles. Emily used a 3D Systems Sense scanner to
scan the child's head which was 3D printed onto a lid designed in Autodesk Inventor. Printing
the child's head onto the lid proved to be a mistake, they could easily identify other children
but found it difficult to find themselves…. Animal heads proved much more successful!
@ Teach Design 2014 | Company No. 08388797 | Vat No. 163 3794 90 | [email protected]
Exemplar Project 4
Polli- Portable Stage Set/Props
The brief for this project was to design and make a collapsible
stage set suitable for a touring theatre company. The set would
need to be able to be assembled in a variety of configurations
to suit the stage production.
Iterations
Standardisation
The corner joints started out as individual
three way connectors. These were
successful but difficult to assemble. The
next design was to make clips that fitted
externally but it was realised that a range
of different connectors would be needed,
2, 3 and 4 way, straight, 90 degree and
angled.
Polli designed the stage set using
Autodesk Inventor. All component parts
were designed to standard sizes based
around whole, half and quarter sheets of
MDF and plastic waste pipe.
Through further experimentation Polli found that she only
needed 2 different clips to be able to assemble many different
configurations of joint.
Mass production
Polli’s final design did however require a large
number of joining clips. Rather than making these
individually she printed 12 at a time by tiling these
onto the print pad of the CubeX printer.
@ Teach Design 2014 | Company No. 08388797 | Vat No. 163 3794 90 | [email protected]