Hello!
I’m a junior WRTC and Spanish double major with a minor in creative writing. On top of studying, working in the writing center, and making drinks at Dunkin, I like to spend my time cooking, eating too much food, and laughing with friends. Upon graduating, I hope to finally have figured out what I want to do with my life; however, I’m sure it’ll involve lots of writing.
Grab Bag Noun
My noun was octopus. My goal when designing this project was to make an abstract but recognizable silhouette so viewers know what they’re viewing. To that end, my principle shapes were to be a sphere and cone to represent the head and body and squiggles (made of curved tubes) to represent the tentacles.
- A witches broom.
- A camera.
- Book.
- An atom.
- A rocketship.
- A diamond ring.
- A house.
- Sunglasses.
- A button.
- A hot dog.
- A star-shaped stamp.
- A shooting star.
- A pumpkin.
- A dagger.
- A torch.
- A flashlight.
- The Eye of Sauron.
- The Washington Monument.
- A witches hat.
- A Christmas tree.
1 of 20 Objects
Of the 20 objects I’d made, I chose to print the dagger because I expected it to be the most challenging. Specifically, I thought the printer would struggle with the shape and thinness of the blade, and that is what happened—partially. When I loaded the model into Cura I didn’t realize the blade’s thinness prevented it from being recognized by the printer. As a result, the first print had no blade; however, I simply edited the model on Tinkercad to make it thicker. It worked perfectly the second time.
Moving Parts Project
For my Moving Parts project, I decided to make a simple ball and socket joint. To my surprise, the first print succeeded perfectly, and the tolerance of the joint is tight enough to hold the ball in any desired position but loose enough to swivel around.
As you can see from the following pictures, the actual print is tiny—so tiny that it took only 24 minutes to make. Were I to re-print it, I would enlarge it in Cura. The reason is twofold: 1) it would make the print sturdier which would 2) make the joint more secure. While I was able to force the ball into the joint without destroying it, the thinness of the print’s grips led to their eventual breaking. (Although that’s partially my fault for being careless with it.)
Tinkercad Final Project: Constructible Rose
For my final Tinkercad project, I’ve decided to make a constructible rose. The goal is to print the sculpt in multiple, assimilable pieces, and the reason for this is twofold: printing such a geometrically complicated object in one pass would likely fail, and the interactivity of the print will.
To conceptualize and plan my design, I created UML-inspired diagrams to 1) decide what objects would need to be created, 2) what objects connect to each other, 3) how they connect, and finally 4) the characteristics of those objects. While, in reality, I scribbled the diagram quickly in my notebook I’ve remade it using draw.io which is free and neater.
A benefit of my object-oriented approach to this project is that it requires minimal work. Each item has only one design, and if multiple items are needed then it’s a simple matter of copying and pasting them. However, the fact that each class of object can be printed separately—while giving me flexibility—means that the connections between them must be flawless which is the hardest part. However, for my Moving Parts project I successfully designed and printed a ball-and-socket joint (the most common connecter in this project), so I feel capable of completing the project.
Regarding my progress on this project, I have successfully designed every type of object (i.e. the bud, petals, leaves, and stem) without their connectors and combined them in Tinkercad to preview how the final product may look. The following is a screenshot of it:
Mr. Kitty
For my first design, I was inspired by a cat model I found on Thingiverse and the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. It would have been too difficult to sculpt the latte rin Tinkercad, so I decided to just give him a moustache and glasses to make him seem very English and quizzical.
Bunny Buddah
When Dr. Field first explained the project to us, using a Batman Buddah, it inspired me to make my own with bunny ears. However, what’s most interesting about this model is the head that I covered up. Previously, the Buddah looked like Kim Jong Un. Why? I don’t know. I really don’t. It looks better now though.
