For our St. Patrick’s Day event, I let attendees write their own custom text on a 3D printed coaster with a shamrock on it. The coasters were designed as a disk shape with a raised lip on the edge. The lip is rounded into the disk to make a smooth slope up to the top of the shamrock shape. In the middle was a vector I found on the internet, and it is embedded 1.2mm into the coaster. The text is also embedded 1.2mm.
Equipment/Software:
- Tinkercad
- Prusa MK3S+ 3D printers
- Overture PLA
Step by Step:
- Designed the coasters in Tinkercad
- Exported the file as STL
- Made examples of the coasters with generic text to show people during the event what they should expect
- Made a version of the shamrock coaster without any text so people would be able to add their own during the event
I tried making a coaster in the shape of a shamrock instead of just having a round coaster with a shamrock on it, but I was unable to make one that was visually appealing, so I just ended up using my original design. It also was difficult to get attendees to use the correct setting for their text so that the text was embedded into the coaster.
I learned a new 3D modeling software, onshape, to create first version of the coaster. This allowed me to learn a more advanced 3d modeling software. I now have the capability to create more advanced models. This event also helped my teaching ability as I had to teach a large group of students how to embed text into a shape.