3D Printing

Kate Goldwalker

Fairy Tail Girl
Moderator
Both my 16 yr old and 12 yr old are in the EAST Initiative and have both used 3D printers. This is my youngest son's first year in the program and his first time using a 3D printer.

I'm the coach for my youngest son's First Lego League Robotics team. For their project this year, they wanted to redesign some areas of their city park that are in need of serious fixes. The boys (it's a team of 3 boys) wanted to make a model of the park using an aerial photo of the city park with 3D models of the areas they are working on.

Here comes the dilemma... One of the areas they are adding to the city park is a Gaga Ball Pit. This is usually in a hexagon or octagon shape...
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It's similar to dodge ball... Anyway, they are wanting to 3D print a hexagon, but my son is running into a problem with the printer. Each time he tries to print the shape, it seems to only print off one 'quadrant' of the hexagon. It will print an x axis, form the 'foot' of the outer wall with a corner, then print the y axis. The cropped area that is brighter is what is being printed each try:
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So, we stop the print each time.

I don't know why it would only be trying to print off that quadrant of the hexagon. Does it have anything to do with how it's spliced and saved for the print?

I'm also learning as I go here, and only when I am actually up at the school with him when he is printing. If anyone here has any idea what could be going wrong, please let me know.
 
This may be a redundant question, but did the printer attempt to restart at those axis for the next level? Meaning you know that if you let it go it would just build that section of the wall? Depending on the printers I've observed, and I haven't run any actually, but I've seen them build in sections for some reason. Most what I've seen have been square and angled work so one couldn't tell where it stopped and started.
But from the looks of that, to not do a whole level seems illogical. Since it takes like 7 years to build one leggo block, I can see why you've stopped it.
 
Yes, each level built up would include increasing the x and y as well.

We're currently thinking that he may need to re-position the hexagon itself. We're thinking that the point where the x and y meet which would be (0,0) is the center of the hexagon, and that would explain why only one quadrant is being printed along with the x and y axis. Here is what I mean (this is a 3D print file I created myself on Tinkercad yesterday):

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As you can see, the (0,0) is directly in the middle of the hexagon. I'm assuming that my son also saved the file much like I did and his is saving the same way. Which we're going to have to look at this file and see how we can possibly move it inside the x and y. Keep in mind this is just s theory, lol. I'm also learning as I go with him learning as he goes. He was successful in printing 4 mini basketball goals, about 3 inches high each. We may have to compare and contrast his hexagon file with the basketball goal file.

When we look at the hexagon and the proposed print, how the machine is suppose to 3D print it, it doesn't show any lines in the middle of the hexagon at all. It does show a 'foot' so to speak before it begins building up vertically around the whole hexagon when building up the walls.

I'll keep you posted on what happens when we re-position the hexagon in Tinkercad.
 
So, update, if any of you are wondering...

Despite trying multiple times to print in the two different sized 3D printers, my son decided to print just 6 mitered walls to glue together. It has worked. Was a pain in the back side to glue together because he used a 60 degree angle.. probably should have done a 58-55 degree... but regardless the hexagon has been made.

This is for a model of their city park. The Robotics team has designed and come up with some plans to fix the city park and make it inclusive, handicap accessible. They have presented their project 3 times to the mayor, twice to the park and rec guy, and once in front of the whole city council. The city has decided to use some of the things/products/companies that the boys have found!

Anyway, I'll try to take a few pics of the things they 3D printed for their city park model and post them here.
 
So, update, if any of you are wondering...

Despite trying multiple times to print in the two different sized 3D printers, my son decided to print just 6 mitered walls to glue together. It has worked. Was a pain in the back side to glue together because he used a 60 degree angle.. probably should have done a 58-55 degree... but regardless the hexagon has been made.

This is for a model of their city park. The Robotics team has designed and come up with some plans to fix the city park and make it inclusive, handicap accessible. They have presented their project 3 times to the mayor, twice to the park and rec guy, and once in front of the whole city council. The city has decided to use some of the things/products/companies that the boys have found!

Anyway, I'll try to take a few pics of the things they 3D printed for their city park model and post them here.
Well, I'm glad you and your son figured out a way to do, without the printer doing it for you. This sounds like a great class learning project to try to figure and succeed in printing the hex the way you guys intended. The knowledge would certainly help in the future.
Grats to the team.
 
Well, the boys are finally done with all their 3D printing for their model of their city park redesign.

I’ll start with the easier designs. Remember that my son decided to print the sides if the hexagon to glue together. He also printed 4 basketball goals and a net for a tennis court.
 

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One of the other two boys printed a swing set with 4 bays. Their change was to add a handicap swing. Here is what he printed.
Yes those are strings. The ‘chains’ that were connecting the seats to the top bar easily broke... more than once. I poked holes on each side of the seats and added the strings.
 

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The last change they made was an inclusive playset. The one our park has currently is falling apart and not handicap accessible. The last of the 3 boys designed this based off the playset he picked out from a company online. It has ramps for wheel chairs and a cruiser that shakes. It’s the box on the side.
 

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Is it all going into a larger diorama? Will they finish with labels on the items as well?
I wonder what the complete presentation will look like. It looks like a great project that all the kids should be proud of.
Out of curiosity, what was the average print time for the playset?
 
This is going onto a satellite image of our park which is on a foam board. If you notice, each piece is glued onto clear, sturdy plastic. The map is laminated as well. We're using those 3M velcro type squares to attach the pieces with their plastic base into the correct positions on top of the map. Being able to see through the plastic, the judges will be able to see what use to be in that position if it's anything different. Besides that, it looks like it's on the appropriate surface... grass or court.

Their project presentation requires them to have a project board. All information is printed out, including images of what is at the park now and what they have picked to replace it, and attached to the board. The 3D model just helps people to understand the placement better.

The kids are very proud of their project. They met with the mayor and park & rec manager twice. A city council member was with them the second meeting. And then their last meeting was at the city council meeting on Nov 18th. The mayor told them that night that they will be using the court tiles that the boys found, the handicap swing they found, and probably will be adding a gaga ball pit as well. He invited them to come to the ribbon cutting ceremony in the spring when they are finished with everything.

The playset had to be printed in sections. 5 sections total. The shortest print time was the cruiser. It's super glued onto the section section. The one that took the longest was the one with the pyramid top. I want to say that one was over 3 hours. So.. I guess averages out to roughly 2 hours and 40 minutes per section. All together about 12 hours.
 
This is going onto a satellite image of our park which is on a foam board. If you notice, each piece is glued onto clear, sturdy plastic. The map is laminated as well. We're using those 3M velcro type squares to attach the pieces with their plastic base into the correct positions on top of the map. Being able to see through the plastic, the judges will be able to see what use to be in that position if it's anything different. Besides that, it looks like it's on the appropriate surface... grass or court.

Their project presentation requires them to have a project board. All information is printed out, including images of what is at the park now and what they have picked to replace it, and attached to the board. The 3D model just helps people to understand the placement better.

The kids are very proud of their project. They met with the mayor and park & rec manager twice. A city council member was with them the second meeting. And then their last meeting was at the city council meeting on Nov 18th. The mayor told them that night that they will be using the court tiles that the boys found, the handicap swing they found, and probably will be adding a gaga ball pit as well. He invited them to come to the ribbon cutting ceremony in the spring when they are finished with everything.

The playset had to be printed in sections. 5 sections total. The shortest print time was the cruiser. It's super glued onto the section section. The one that took the longest was the one with the pyramid top. I want to say that one was over 3 hours. So.. I guess averages out to roughly 2 hours and 40 minutes per section. All together about 12 hours.
What a great learning experience for them, and you too.

Here's an idea for a little more ego building and just plain coolness for the kids and parents to keep as memories.
If the city you're in has a city access or city cable channel where they produce city programs to watch by the city citizens, like the city council meetings and such. Go to that department and ask them to interview your son and team and use this as a PSA and community interest spot on the channel. Don't leave it up to the city to do this for your kids. Most city cable departments will almost always do these kinds of features and sometimes they don't mind the suggestions. Most likely, if you have a city cable, they would almost have to do a news piece about the ribbon cutting and such. The kids that helped design the park would be a natural news show and even a stand alone feature piece.

If you like the idea, go in a month early before the ribbon cutting and talk to the dept head, or senior producer about your project. Matter of fact, it wouldn't hurt to do your own b-roll or publicity photographs of the group, or even shots you took of them doing the work also, as the producer can always use shots of the story.

I used to do this for a living. And it's a worthy wonderful story for people in the city to watch.
 
Well, they did make the front page of the newspaper for the county last month. However, we live in a town that is under 4,000 people. We don't have city cable.

I did buy the newspaper though. I don't usually buy one, but had to, lol.
 
Well, they did make the front page of the newspaper for the county last month. However, we live in a town that is under 4,000 people. We don't have city cable.

I did buy the newspaper though. I don't usually buy one, but had to, lol.
Aw nuts. Not even an access channel? No bulletin board on cable there?
 
We don't have our own cable company. The cable company we do have, which also provides cable internet, is from 60 miles away. Nothing like living 40 minutes from everything, lol.
 
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