Entering the world of 3D-printing

Andreas, Matias,
Dina, Julie, Herman,
Sunniva, Anine and Luzie

Welcome! We are eight students at an Upper Secondary School called Vågen videregående skole in the south-west of Norway.
This blog is made by us. It will show you how we entered the world of 3D printing.

The project started in December 2015 and was ended in January 2016 in a subject called Design and Architecture 1.
We didn´t have any experience but were eager to learn how to use 3D technology as a tool in a design process.
The students formed two design teams:
- Team 1 Guedy
- Team 2 World of Art Craft.

We worked closely together with our local sciences center called Vitenfabrikken in Sandnes. They provided both knowledge and access to their printer, an Ultimaker 2.

Please don´t hesitate to leave a comment if you get inspired by our work.

Inspiration

We visited Meisle in Bryne to see how professionals use 3D printing.

3D Printing Software

We looked at Tinkercad, Fusion 360 and 123Design and finally decided to use Autodesk Fusion 360 for our project. We also used Cura to get the designs printed on the Ultimaker 2.

The Assignment

The making of chess pieces: Each designteam should design all the six pieces to a theme based chess game.
Check out the lesson plan here (in Norwegian only at the moment).

Report Design team 1

Team 1: Anine, Matias, Dina and Herman started GEUDy Design

What is 3D? What is 3D-printing?
3D is an abbreviation for three-dimensional. A 3D-model or figure has three dimensions, which means that there is a height, width and depth, an x-axis, y-axis and a z-axis. 3D is something we are experimenting everyday, for all objects that are around us are three-dimensional, because we live in a three-dimensional world. We can use a 3D-printer to print out three-dimensional objects. But this printer is not a regular printer. This printer print out modells and figures with an x-,y- and z-axis. 3D-printing is used within product development, industrial and also architecture and model building The 3D-printing process is controlled by computer programs.

Who are we?
We are students from Vågen Upper Secondary school. The design team we are from is Geudy Design, and the team consists of Matias, Herman, Anine and Dina.

Why are we doing this? We do this to learn, and to learn something new.
What experiences do we have with 3D-applications? What knowledge did we have? What can we in the end? What have we learned? What sources have we used?
Before we started this project, two of the group members had already used Sketchup already. Mostly to make buildings. The 3D-application we us now is Fusion 360, witch is a lot different to Sketchup. So we were all new to the application when we started.

What is our assignment? 
The assignment were to design and to print out chessmen. We as a design agency were going to create a chess board with chessmen, that we designed ourselves. We had to find a theme and also the age group the chess were for.

Who work in my team? Why work as a design team?
The team consists of 4 students. We are a design team, and our name is Geudy. The reason we are working as a team and not individual is because then we can discus ideas and mix ideas, and get the best possible results.

What is chess?
Chess is a broad game and can be played by 2 players. Each player will have 16 chess pieces. These chess pieces will be in 2 colours, mainly the two colours that is used is black and white. These 16 pieces contain one king, one queen, too rooks, two knights, two bishops and eight pawns. Most people play chess for fun, but there is also tournaments for chess.

What is our idea, -idea process and preparations?
Our idea were to design the chessmen as stylized famous buildings/architecture. First we found different buildings who we liked, but some of the buildings were to difficult to make so we had to sift out the once we wanted to use. When we had decided for 6 or 7 buildings, we all made our own sketches to se how we would like the chessman to look like.

King - Burj Kalifa 

Queen - Big ben  

Rook - Petronas towers

Knight - Burj Al Arab 

Bishop - World Trade Center

Pawn - Gherkin

How were the chessmen made?
-Design process, procedure in Fusion 360, printing, exact dimensions, material, colour grounds etc. In our design process we decided together how the chessmen should look like, exact dimensions, colours and material. We decided for our theme to me famous architecture/buildings. The size of the chessman are from 5,5 cm - 8,5 cm, and the colours were grey and white. After the design process we made the chessmen in Fusion 360. When we made the chessman we had to try and fail, cause we are all we new to the program.

Report Design team 2

Team 2: Luzie, Sunniva, Andreas and Julie started World of Art Craft

WORLD OF ARTCRAFT
We are four teenagers studying in Norway. Our school is called Vågen vgs and can be found in one of Norways cities called Sandnes. We are students interested in 3D- printing. Wanting to learn more about this our amazing teacher gave us this opportunity.

Why are we doing this?
To learn and experience. Even the teacher joined us in the progress of learning. She gave us a task to make our own chess pieces. We agreed to a theme for the pieces, and made sketches on paper.
To make the chess pieces we used a program called Fusion 360. We had to agree to the size of the chess pieces and stuff. The pieces is gonna be made of plastic, coloured black.

How we did it?
The event has showed us how teamwork is and how to plan stuff. Also gave us a better image on how 3D works. It´s a huge difference in our team when it comes to 3D- drawings and programs. Some of us had already used 3D- programs like Sketchy.
We did not know how to use Fusion 360, but we learned it all together. It took a lot of time to get used to it. We have all tried our best in finding out how Fusion works and learned a lot in the progress. We are now capable of making figures and such. We have also learned how to use this other program called Tinkercad. We have learned to think 3D to see the realistic part of making items.
We have visited a lot of places and learned a lot about how 3D-printing works. We have also learned about the 3D printer. How it works and what kind of materials you can use. Our teacher had printed out papers that showed us a step by step guide on how to use different techniques. Fusion 360 also has step by step tutorials on YouTube.

What does 3D mean? 
3D is an abbreviation off three-dimensional, that describes a figure with 3 dimensions. This means that we see extent in both height, width and depth.

What is a 3D Printer? 
3D-Printing is a relative short process. That layer by layer builds a prototype or a model. The way the process works is by adding layer by layer with new material! ( In either fluid or Powdered form) and arranges them in a desired contour. The process gets controlled by a computer program, and happens inside special machines that usually goes by the name of 3D-Printers. 3D-Printing stands out from other types of production because in no parts off the process is any type of cutting or drilling methods used.

Who is working in our team? 
Our Team consist of 4 people. Luzie, Julie, Sunniva and Andreas. We are all 1th graders from Vågen upper secondary school and we are taking the educational route off SF (Studiespesialiserende med formgiving).

Why work as a design team? 
We are all relatively new to 3D-Programs, and no one on our team has ever tried fusion 360 before. Because off this it is really useful to be able to shear knowledge and experiences that each individual has learned in this project. We do all have different ideas that we as a team can build upon to a chess board. Our team can together solve the tasks we are given. Either individually or as a group.

Our theme

Our theme for the chess pieces is the world in general. Different tourist buildings, and famous stuff from countries around the world. Two pieces from Europe, two from Asia and two from America.

King – Our king got inspiration from the warriors from the old Greek times. Like the warriors from Sparta. This piece is the biggest and most detailed one.

Queen – Our queen is inspired from The Statue Of Liberty In New York, USA. We gave it a crown, like the statue has.

Bishop – Our Bishop is the rocket called Saturn V. It´s based of that rocket and is from Texas, USA. Which is NASA´s rocket.

Rook – Our Rooks is inspired by typical Chinese buildings that you see in movies like Mulan.

Knight – Our Knights is inspired from this straw goat that´s typical in Sweden.

Pawn –Our Pawn got a cute, typical Asian furniture look. It´s tiny and got inspired by Chinese lamps.

What is chess? 
Chess is a board game designed for 2 people, were the goal is to take the opponents king (chess piece). Chess is played on an 8 times 8 grid, were the tow players have 16 chess pieces each. The basics of the game is easy to comprehend but there are many complicated strategies to both play and play around. This is what makes chess one of the worlds most popular games with over 600 million players.

Final result: Printed chess pieces

Made by Design team 1: Geudy