During our first rotation, I had to create either a toothbrush holder, a coin holder, a headphone holder, or a phone stand. I decided to go with the stand because I really have no need for any of the other items. Since we were able to find inspiration for our designs, I started looking at ideas of 3-D printed stands people came up with, like below:
I wanted to find an stand that was relatively minimalist, a stand that is aesthetic without being too flashy. Eventually, I decided on something like this:
This kind of design was the exact style I was looking for. Once I knew what I wanted to create, I started drawing it out onto Inventor.
At first, of course, I needed to draw a 2-D drawing and extrude it into a 3-D object, Like so:
Once I extruded the stand, I needed to decide how thick i wanted the stand to be. Too thin, and it might break. Too big, it's not very portable and it could get chunky. Eventually I found a happy medium, shown below. The white stand shown previously has a pretty cool feature. It has a hole in the back of the stand to allow a cord to come through and charge the phone while you are using it. I resolved to add this to my own version of the stand. Also, the stand on the left has some nice curves to it, unlike the one on the right, which looks too angular for me.
After I put the finishing touches onto my project, I had to convert my inventor file into a Makerbot one, so that the printer could recognize the file and print the contents. I also needed to resize my stand so that it didn't exceed the printer's maximum size to print. Once, completed, I put the file onto my usb drive, and headed over to the printers.
Once the 3-D printer finished printing out my phone stand, I removed the stands and supporting base. I tried it out, and voila! It works!
Summary:
Overall, I am very happy with how it turned out. It was fun being given the freedom to design it however I wanted, and I feel like I learned a lot from this project. I learned how to correctly use the arc tool to accurately draw curves, I learned how to think discerningly, thinking about the best possible way to create this stand. This rotation has been very enlightening for me. I didn't know the process of how 3-D printing worked until now, and has peaked my interest in the matter.
Overall, I am very happy with how it turned out. It was fun being given the freedom to design it however I wanted, and I feel like I learned a lot from this project. I learned how to correctly use the arc tool to accurately draw curves, I learned how to think discerningly, thinking about the best possible way to create this stand. This rotation has been very enlightening for me. I didn't know the process of how 3-D printing worked until now, and has peaked my interest in the matter.