I chose to make moveable fishies for the 3D printing assignment. I downloaded a fish fossil stl from Thingiverse and used this to print 1 grey resin fish on the Formlabs and 4 fish on the Prusa. See the stl I used below.

Overall, this project was pretty simple with only one failed attempt with the prusa. My first print failed because I chose to print directly onto the build plate without a raft or brim. The fish broke when I removed it from the plate. For the next Prusa print, I decided to select brim which allowed me to easily remove the fish. I scaled the fish down to 50% of the original size after my initial failed print when slicing the stl to print on the Prusa. I initially had concerns the at scale print would not fit in the given plastic container. However, I maintained the original size for the resin print fishy and it fit fine within the container. I used the slicer on the 3DprinterOS site for the Prusa and preform for the Formlabs printer. Post processing for the Formlabs printer requires washing and curing.

Formlabs grey resin fishy

Prusa grey PLA fishy

Key takeaways: 3D printers are fun and the fish turned out very well, especially the resin fishy. The only issues I had with this assignment came from wait times for the 3D printers. Before this assignment, I preferred Formlabs over the Prusa. After this assignment, I still prefer the resin printer. In my opinion, the results have a better finish and are stronger.

Cost Analysis: Labor costs at $15/hr sum to $30, resin and PLA cost are small totaling to ~$5 totaling to ~$35. The price of 3D printers are not included in total since they are available for use at OEDK.