F|F Research & Concept

This is the original Thingiverse object!

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2183259

This is a 3D printed plant pot. The purpose of this object is to hold small plants such as flowers or succulents. There are two deep cut-outs that allow space for both the plant and the dirt that it requires in order to grow. The object includes mini stairs for an aesthetic look. This object also allows for the owner to place not one, but two different kinds of plants within the object, which would provide for a more aesthetically pleasing look.

Personalizations & Improvements

I really love the design of this object and I think that aesthetically it looks really good. One improvement that I think would really help would be the addition of small holes in the middle wall. This would allow for even distribution of water and allow for wiggle room, should you over water one of the plants. The small holes would give you the added luxury of only having to water one side. Another change I made was that I made the object 25% smaller. I thought that this would be beneficial in regards to printing time and it would make the object that much more versatile, you could put it in so many small places! Lastly, I made an aesthetic change, I thought the pot might look more cohesive and interesting if the first set of stairs went into the object itself.

F|F Iterations

Original Object by @AndresQuijas on Thingiverse

Tinkercad Iterations

3D Print Iterations

I found this process so exciting and interesting! I began with printing the original object, but when I put it in Cura it was going to take a day and a half to print. After talking with Dr. Hooker I decided to scale it down by 50% with a .2 layer height and 5% infill. With this, I was able to cut down the time it would take to print by a lot. After printing the first print, I realized that it came out with a bottom piece part attached to it. I wasn’t really too fond of the way it looked and also thought it would add to the print time. The next day when I went to print my object with iterations, I realized that the different printer I was using printed even faster! As it printed I watched and I found that the printer I switched to did not add that bottom piece, which I think works better for the object aesthetically.

When I was adding iterations in Tinkercad I worried my iterations would be uneven, but eventually, I got it down. When I printed the second object, it came out perfect. I did end up making what I would call a “happy mistake”. When I printed the altered object, the holes weren’t completely hollow, but I actually liked the way it looked a lot better. I also think that it would function better for plants. This way the water can seep through slowly if you over water one side and it also makes the holes in the object more discrete. In addition to this, I really liked the way the object looked without the third set of stairs and the extension of the lower crevis.

F|F Final Print & Reflection

This is my final remix of AndresQuijas flower pot, more about my remix can be found on Thingiverse.

Reflection

Throughout the process of working on this project, I have been able to learn so much about 3D printing that I never knew before. I started out feeling discouraged when I realized that the specific flower pot I chose to print would take a day and a half to print. With help from Professor Hooker, I was able to adjust aspects of the print in order to get the printing time down. I started by adjusting the sizing by 50% with 0.2 layer height, and 5% infill. After printing the original in with those adjustments, I printed my iterations with them as well. I was content with the way my iterations came out and for my final print I wanted to make the print true to size, so I did. My final print is the actual size that the piece was supposed to be, so I was able to put actual plants in the print, which was so cool. I enjoyed seeing the print “come to life” and be put to real use. I watered the plants on one side and check the soil to see if the holes I put in were doing their job, and it worked! Through this project, I have learned that 3D printing is a big game of trial and error, so when I got to my last print and was satisfied with it, it was a really gratifying feeling.

Original design by colleeniebikini on Thingiverse.

This is the original model off of Thingiverse that I printed. Below, I will explain the flaws I found using this model.

Below are my first iterations on Tinkercad & the print

In this first iteration, not only did I decide to make the model shorter and wider to open up the mouth, but I also printed it without a raft or a base of any kind which reduced my overall print time. I had no troubles with this since the object itself already has a relatively flat, stable base. However, I was still not pleased with the out come and found while my adjustments did not help with the issue of the narrow mouth- it did not totally solve the problem.

Second iteration on Tinkercad and prints:

After not being satisfied with my first iteration, I made another. I printed this one without any kind of base as well. This time around I kept the planter short and wide like my original idea, but just increased the overall size of the model. This seemed to be the sweet spot, and I finally printed a model that I was satisfied with. I am excited to use it soon!

This is my final addition to my print. I added a drainage tray to catch some of the water that comes out of the drainage hole in the planter after watering the plant. I didn’t print either of these with a base, and both turned out smooth with a nice finish thanks to their shape. Overall I didn’t run into many issues throughout the process, and achieved my goal of making the planter easier to use in the process of actually planting.

F|F Research and Concept

Above is the image of an original 3D print of a small hexagonal shaped planter. It is large enough to contain a singular small to medium sized plant and has a fun, geometric design. It has a drainage hole on the bottom to allow for proper watering of the plant. The original design narrows down at the opening of the planter, making potting a plant properly with the right amount of soil difficult.

Improvement Concepts

One improvement I wish to make upon the original planter design is to slightly shorten and widen the object. This will not only widen the base but the mouth as well, allowing for more ease when filling with soil and potting a plant.

F|F Research and Concept

The original Thingiverse object:

The image above is a model of a 3D printed jewelry holder. The purpose of this object is to hold large amounts of necklaces, bracelets, rings, and other kinds of jewelry with its copious amounts of tree branches and it’s bowl at the bottom. Many people keep their jewelry in an unruly fashion: in miscellaneous bowls and on hooks that get too clogged. This model is a solution for the issue of having a disorderly system of storing jewelry, because there are a large amount of tree branches and a bowl at the bottom that can hold all of those pieces. This design is great for almost all kinds of jewelry.

Potential Personalizations/ Improvements

One improvement I wish to make is elongating the trunk size; doing this would allow for longer jewelry, such as longer necklaces, to be hung without cluttering the bottom bowl. The original design has the trunks length at 41.87mm, so I would increase that size to be around 50mm. The other adjustment I would make would be to lengthen the branch sizes in order for them to be able to hold more pieces of jewelry per branch. Both of these adjustments would allow for more jewelry and more kinds of jewelry to be stored on it.

F|F Iterations

The Creator of the 3D Tree Jewelry Holder is Rui Costa e Silva.

Below are my first iterations on Tinkercad and the print

When I printed the original design, I thought the quality of the design turned out great; the branches were not flimsy, the bowl at the bottom was sturdy, and it looked very nice. The only issue I had with the original design was that it was small and short, so I could not hang bracelets from the branches, only rings. In this first iteration, I wanted to try to solve this issue I was having with the original design. I extended the top of the tree from 83.75 mm to 98.00 mm in Tinkercad. When I did that, it made the printing process go from ~3 hours to ~13 hours, so I decided to change the layer height to .3 to bring down the time to 4 hours of printing time. What worked about my iteration was the height adjustment I made as it successfully held larger pieces of jewelry that the original print could not hold. What did not work and what I learned from printing this iteration was that with the taller branches needed to come a larger bowl, as the bowl is the base for the tree and it seemed off balance. In my next print I will handle this issue by increasing the length and width of the bowl. I also learned that changing the layer height to 0.3 took away from the integrity of the print, making it not as pleasing to the eye and also a bit more flimsy.In the future I would maintain that longer printing time in order to uphold the quality of the design. In the end, what is important is the quality of the design, and not as much the length of time it takes to print (so long as there is not a time constraint which there wasn’t in my case).

Below are my second iterations on Tinkercad and the print.

With my second iteration, I wanted to resolve the issue that my first iteration had where the base was not very sturdy so it was easily tipped over. In this iteration, i increased the length of the base bowl from 97.88mm to 106.94mm. In addition, I changed the width from 62.19mm to 68.19mm. I maintained the height that I had for my second iteration, so the new enlarged base effectively stabilizes the taller branches. With my first iteration, I tried to shorten the printing time as much as possible by using an infill density of 20% and a layer height of 0.3, and this led to the print coming out very flimsy. With this second iteration, I set the layer height to 0.2 and the infill density to 40%, and this effectively made the print much more hefty and dense, not easily knocked over. I am very pleased with the iterations I made and believe that it is now a design that works perfectly for the function I wanted to add of being able to hold larger pieces or jewelry. This iteration is the sturdiest of all of my prints (including the original design and my first iteration) and it is also the most pleasing to the eye because of sanding the branches down post-print. Other than sanding, there were no other post-print touch ups because I was satisfied with the beautiful purple color and feeling to the jewelry tree.

Reflection

Overall, my experience with printing this jewelry tree was very exhilarating and interesting. My experience with printing this object began with the first print, where I had taken a design I found on Thingiverse and printed that. It was very exciting getting to see an object on the internet, pressing a few buttons, and then have it appear before my eyes. After seeing and touching the original design with my own eyes and hands, I was then able to figure out what I could change to customize this design for my own functions, which for me included making it bigger in order to hold longer pieces of jewelry. After printing my first iteration, I got the hang of what the actual effects of infill density and layer height really meant, so I was able to adjust those in my second iteration to enhance my prints integrity. In addition, getting to see by holding and using the print itself showed me how the height in my first iteration affected the sturdiness of the jewelry tree, and so I was able to come to the conclusion of lengthening and widening the base bowl. Overall, this project made me feel more confident in my ability to use Tinkercad and understand the aspects of a 3D printed design that increase its integrity. I am excited to continue on my 3D printing journey and learn more and more about this incredible invention.

Below is a link to my Tree Jewelry Holder on Thingiverse:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4780280

F|F Research & Concept

3D Soap Holder https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:404028

This is a model of a 3D soap holder. The main purpose of this model is to have a personalized box for a bar of soap to put in your bathroom. People usually have a bar of soap sitting on their sink counter or at the side of their bathtub. After using the bar of soap, when people set it down, it would typically start sliding off the surface and falling on the floor. This model is a solution for that issue. This model will hold your soap box and collect the excess water from the soap and let it filter to the bottom of the box. There is also a small crevice at the corner of the box to remove the honeycomb filter, making it easy to clean the box and putting it back together. This is great for all basic types of soap bars, but there are bars of soap that have different sizes and weight today that could have an issue when using this model, and I think the current model should be slightly modified for all types of bars of soap.

Personalizations/Improvements

The image above shows some of my personal improvements for the soap holder model. The original height of the model is 30mm tall, but I feel like with the different sizes of bars of soap nowadays, it might not be tall enough to hold the bar of soap in place. That is why I wanted to make the height of the box taller to 35mm. Another improvement I would make is to close the corner of the box, but keep the shape of the honeycomb, with the corner bit off, so it would still filter the excess water from the soap. The reason why is because, with the original model, the corner seems a bit too open, and I feel like the excess water will leak out, and the water leaking out could end up under the box, making it become slippery, and thus, the box could slide around, or even fall off. As a result, my two main improvements would be to change the height of the soap holder, and the corner of the box.

Form | Function Iterations

Original Thingiverse Model:

The slideshow above is the original model created by, piuLAB. There has been no remixes done to this model.

The video above is a demonstration of how the original model works. It does its job of keeping the bar of soap in place, and filtering out the excess water from the soap after using it, however there is some issues that I see. Since this bar of soap has been used for a while, the size of the bar of soap has decreased. However, if I happen to use a new bar of soap, it might be able to keep it in place and stay inside of the box, but due to the density and the height of the new bar of soap, it could lead it to falling of the model due to its size and height. Also the lip on the corner of the model that filters out the excess water has some issues as well. I have used this model for a couple of days, and as you can see from the video, after using the bar of soap, there is still a large amount of water in the box that didn’t filter out. I had to manually pick up the box and pour out the excess water myself, when the model should be doing that itself. So I decided to change and make some iterations to the original model.

Iteration Process

First remix of Soap Holder:

The 2 slideshows above shows my first iteration of the soap holder and printing it out. The original soap holder had a height of 30mm, and I decided to raise it to 40mm to make sure any types of bars of soap can stay in place and prevent it from falling off the box itself. As you can see from slide 2-4 of the printed model images above, I had also made the lip of the corner of the box deeper with grouping a cone shape with the model, to make sure the excess water can filter out from the box. After using the remixed box a couples of times with a bar of soap, it did improve the functionality of the model. The bar of soap stayed in place, and the excess water was filtering much more than the original model. However there was still some errors with the box.

Second remix of Soap Holder:

The slideshow above are images of my second remix of the model. Due to the weather, I did not have the chance to print the model out. In this remix, I have kept the iterations from the second remix (keeping the height of 40mm and making the corner lip of the box deeper). The main change I have made in this remix is including an incline inside of the box. Since there is still excess water at the bottom of the box that won’t exit out of the corner, I decided it would be best to add an incline so the excess water can flow down the incline and exit out of the corner of the box.

F|F Final Print & Reflection

This is the final remix of my model without the filter.

This is the final remix of my model with the filter.

Reflection:

This is my final remixed print of the original soap holder created by piuLAB. My main changes in my remix was increasing the height, making the corner lip deeper for the excess water, and adding an incline inside the box for the water to exit out of the corner. For more details, visit my remix at Thingiverse.

This project was very interesting and creatively challenging for me. When I first downloaded the original files, it was very confusing to me of how I can remix this original model. My first edit of this model was to raise the height of the box from 30mm to 40mm so any types of soap boxes can stay in place, and wouldn’t slip off the box after being used. After that, I wanted to make more edits. I then saw that the lip corner of the box, where the excess water exits out of the box, felt a bit too closed for the water to exit. I wanted to change that, so in Tinkercad I grouped a cylinder with the corner lip of the box, so the lip is much deeper than before, and the excess water can exit out much easier than before. After printing that remix, it worked exactly as I planned. However, I wanted to make another edit to the box. I decided to add an incline inside of the box so when the water drips from the soap to the bottom, the excess water can glide down the incline and exit out of the corner. That edit was very challenging, I had a hard time figuring out which shape could fit inside the box in the best way possible. I then ended up grouping a box and a wedge together and changed the radius, so the perimeter of the incline would be the same size as the box. In the end, the print went really well and I’m glad that it functioned the way I wanted it to function.

This process really made me be more creative than I usually am, and it felt very satisfying to make a print that would function the way I wanted it to do. Although there were many trial and errors when changing the shape of the original model and adding new parts to it, it was worth it. I can’t wait to use my remixed model at home. This was my very first finalized remix of an original model that I have done, and thanks to this experience, I am now looking forward to remixing other original models, and even creating my own original model that I can be proud of.