3D Print in Place Project
question
For this project, we were tasked with designing a dinosaur that could jiggle/move and be around 3-5 inches. The challenge was we had to print the whole design at once and not in multiple parts.
brainstorm
For this project I wanted to do something different than a dinosaur: a lizard. I got approval and started brainstorming. There was a lot of different ways I could tackle this project, and the first thing I did was look up tutorials on making joints for the lizard design. I looked up images and videos on how to design a ball joint because it looked the most practical for me to design.
plan & Design
These were my inital designs for my joints after watching tutorials and multiple failed attempts of 3D designing the perfect clasp for the sphere. After printing multiple designs of the ball joint, I realized it wasn't stable enough for the whole print to stay together since there was always too much space between the sphere and clasp, leading to the pieces to breakaway from each other. This led me to redesign my joints and find a new way that could keep my lizard connected while giving it the ability to bend freely.
buIld & Create
I decided to use cyclinders and boxes as my joints for my lizard design. This was not an easy process to design because between each body, the size of the joint had to increase or decrease depending on the size of the area in between. There was also the challenge of ensuring the print was aligned properly to be able to move after printing, keeping the cylinders centered and clear of surrounding parts.
test & analyze
After test printing it once (the white lizard), it was not as flexible as I wanted it to be, so I went back and redesigned the joints. By making the cylinders thinner, the joints became significantly more flexible, allowing the blue lizard to bend smoothly both up and down. This final iteration demonstrates how important it is to test and refine a design based on your results, and the blue lizard represents my final print, which I am very happy with.
final product
Overall, I think this was the best project I've done this year so far. I felt super creative while doing it, especially while trying to find a solution to my joint problem. I learned how to make a moveable design that could be printed in one piece which in the beginning I didn't have the faintest idea of how to do. I worked really hard on this project and ended up with a great result!
