I loved learning how to use the 3D printers, however, I can admit that this assignment has been one of the most stressful for me so far in the semester. Through this assignment, I learned that 3D printing comes with many pros and cons.  While 3D printing allows users to create intricate and complicated shapes/objects that would be impossible through other industrial means, these intricate designs may be difficult to create on a smaller scale.

 

 

Because of the nature of this assignment, where we had to create a print small enough to fit into gumball machine capsules, I found myself messing up, restarting, messing up again, and then choosing a new print multiple times. Throughout the week, I had to try to make three different types of prints because of the fact that the first two designs would not work well at the miniature scale which they were made.

For this assignment, I was set on creating a print which would serve as a container. I went to thingiverse.com and chose to make the venus box (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1559232), which opens and closes upon turning the base at the bottom of the structure. While this would’ve been a really cool container to have, it does not work practically at the size that I was trying to print it. Below are two pictures which indicate how the venus box works.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you look carefully at each picture, you can see the grooves and pegs which work together to make the doors of the venus box open and close. First I tried printing this design at 0.3 times the original scale, which would allow it to fit into the gumball machine capsule. However, because of the small scale, the pegs were way too small to properly fit into the grooves and actually stay on the correct path as you turn the base of the structure. I tried again, printing the venus box at 0.4 and 0.5 scales, leading to failure due to the same reasons. This is where I learned about one of the limitations of  3D printing. It is hard to construct small and intricate pieces which also have the sturdiness to be under constant motion and pressure. Moving forward, I chose to make a different design which would still hold the purpose of a container.

The second design that I attempted to make was the “Easy as pi” maze container (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3817). This design works by having a central component which has grooves along the side, allowing the other component to fit all the way to the bottom when the user turns it in the correct orientation which allows the inner peg to slide through the grooves. The problem with this design was very similar to the first one that I tried out. Upon scaling this down to 0.45, the peg on the outer component was so small that it would break off once I tried to slide the outer component through the maze of the inner component. I tried again at 0.5x the original size, the maximum size that would fit in the gumball machine capsule, and it did not solve the problem. It was back to the drawing board with this assignment as I continued on my journey to find the best miniature 3D printed container.

Finally, as I was scrolling through thingiverse, my prayers were answered when I found the “twist box” (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2272576). I liked this design because, at plain sight, it looks like a simple cylinder with some spiral lines down the side for aesthetic appeal, but in reality, it is a hidden container where one can store small items by turning one of the pieces in a spiral.

 

This container works by having two identical spiral pieces which have grooves along the sides. When joined together, the grooves fit very nicely into each other and the pieces are free to move up and down into each other. To open the container, you spin the top piece in a clockwise direction and you do the opposite to close it shut.

 

 

 

 

 

With this design, the grooves were long enough so that a miniature scale of this container would still be able to fit together and move smoothly. I believe that is what makes the difference between success and failure for 3D printing small pieces. If one is going to 3D print a small piece, any component which is part of a motion must be long or strong enough in order to be able to actually grasp and hold against the pieces they are supposed to move along.