I had big plans for this little assignment…

On the Thingiverse website, I found a printable gyroscope with a snowflake in the center. Gyroscopes have a fascinating history; their current essential uses are found in navigation, transportation, robotics, auto racing, and more (see link here). The original use for this project is a simple ornament, albeit a cool one with fidget-toy capabilities. However, I believe the multi-axis, concentric circles design could be repurposed for use as a stamp tool for pottery.

Twisted Inspiration…

At home, I have some hex key sets that I quite like: many sizes of wrenches are folded into a handle, with unused sizes lie perpendicular to the selected, extended tool. If the concentric rings of the gyroscope were each embossed on the outside with a variety of texts or images, they could be rolled onto or stamped into the clay and changed for different ones with one quick twist. While I’m sure it’s not impossible to make this product a more traditional way, if the embossed parts were bespoke (like an individual client’s own logo or custom textures), it’s far more appropriate to manufacturing with 3D printing technology.

But wait, there’s less… space.

As-is, the downloaded part wasn’t going to print quite small enough to put into a gumball machine prize bubble (ugh! clients and their unreasonable constraints!). So, I opened the file in Rhino7, scaled it down 20%, then opened it in Prusa Slicer to orient for printing. Ultimately, I was able to send my job to print among some other parts scheduled to run on the Carbon M2 printer in the Rice Nexus lab. However, at this scale and/or in this material (RPU7 resin), the movement aspect of the part failed because the posts fused. Then, they all broke in the wrong places when I tried to nudge them into their intended rotation.

Thank you, thank you next…?

Since I didn’t know whether the fault was in the scaling, or the choice of printing method/material, or both, I struggled to choose an immediate next step.   (o_O) ?    Despite my proficiency in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, I’m the beginner-i-est beginner among the several CAD programs I’ve tinkered in: Rhino7, OnShape, and SolidWorks. I lost a lot of time trying to decide whether to learn to make a more extensive edit to the snowflake project, cruise Thingiverse for another printable, or maybe(!) make a more extensive edit to the snowflake project (are we all having déjà vu?)… Anyway, to help fill the OEDK’s gumball machines on time, I decided the best way forward was to print the same project that my lab partner Grant had found success with using the Carbon DLS (Digital Light Synthesis TM).

Time to put on your big-kid PPE and get over it…

There was still plenty of learning, as I gained more hands-on experience doing tasks I’ve seen him do dozens of times in the Rice Nexus lab at the Ion: pouring resin, sending a job to the queue, starting a print, cleaning and curing the parts (sometimes a quick UV cure, and other times packed in salt to bake in an oven), and carefully cleaning the build platform and resin tray (all supervised activities). I’ll close with some pictures of those processes.

Will we break even, selling these items for $0.25 each?

Because 3d printing has such a high initial investment in equipment, learning, and materials, I think it would take decades to recoup the cost at a quarter a part. However, once everything is running, the tiny amounts of resin (or plastic filament) required for several students’ projects combined is less than the cost of a bag of chips at the OEDK. I recommend Miss Vickie’s Dill Pickle flavor, eaten with chopsticks to avoid sticky salt fingers.