Dream House

This material inquiry asked us to play around in Tinkercad, a 3D digital design website, and print out our creation on a 3D printer, the Ultimaker. What I took away from this assignment was a newfound interest in 3D designing/printing. I learned and developed this interest through the process of it all. This had to be one of the projects I had the most fun in and was the easiest to understand and create. We started off by looking at past examples of other printing houses

and varies other objects. Seeing all the different kinds of things one is able to create, made me feel very excited about starting on this material inquiry. After discussing and looking at the prints, we were asked to go on Tinkercad and follow the demonstration given on the projector. We were asked to built a simple house with the shapes given on the website. While we were doing this, we were also practicing viewing our creation in 3D. That is were we had to move the workplace around in varies angles in order to see if everything was being placed and aligned correctly. This took a little while to get comfortable with since

I am so accustomed to viewing my work in a two-dimensional perspective. I did feel a little annoyed whenever I forgot to do look at the angles and would not align, but I learned to work with it and after some time it came naturally.

My Dream House

After practicing and getting the hang of Tinkercad's controls, we had free range on creating our dream house. I started by looking up houses that resemble something that I actually want to have in the future. After finding the right house, I proceeded to try my best and recreate it on the site. I started by putting down the basic shapes and adding in the details later. I only had the front view of the house I had chosen so for some

aspects of it I had to make it out by myself. I felt very in focus and determined to do the best I could. There were some hiccups along the way such as some of the shapes shifting around in a placement that I did not want or how adding in a detail would not work well with the rest of the structure. However, despite those small obstacles, I overcame them and simply readjusted what needed to be in order for the structure to work. As I would finish sections of my house, I figured that grouping the parts together was a smart choice. That way if the house had to be moved or resized it would be easier. Which

was a problem I faced. After asking for an opinion, I was told that if my house was almost the same size as the work plane it was standing on, the details and the house itself would have to become smaller and less eligible. In addition, it would take a much longer time to finish printing. I felt very disappointed and let down because of how much I was looking forward to having a decently sized house as I had witnessed in some of the examples shown. Nonetheless, I knew that if I wanted the best results for my house I had resize my house. I finished my house in a way where I was happy with the result. There were still a couple of other parts of the house that had to be added in for it to look like the reference picture, but I couldn't wait any longer and wanted to test out the printing process.

Printing

Once I found a good stopping point, I was ready to start printing. First, we were shown how to download our design and what to do afterwards which included opening Cura and putting in the correct dimensions of my house. In addition, we were shown how to change the film if we wanted a different color. I took notes of every step in case I had to refer back to it in the future. Once I was ready to start the printing process, I had a little bit of trouble finding my file in the Ultimaker SD card. That was because I forgot to rename the file. Although it was not a big deal, I did learn my lesson in order to make things just a bit easier. Afterwards, it was just a waiting

game. The printing process was incredibly mesmerizing. The timing for my house was about forty minutes. In the meantime, I was working on other assignments that had to be done.

Printing Problems

After my house was done printing, I immediately noticed that something was not right. The entire first floor of my building was missing. I was so upset because of how much I was looking forward to seeing the finish product. I thought I had done everything correctly. I went back to Tinkercad to look at my building's design and see if I could spot the problem. As I was looking at my

design, I was hit with a sudden realization. I remembered that when creating something, nothing should be left "floating" or "hanging" out. If it is, the printer would not be able to detect and print it out. Therefore discarding anything those floating sections might be attached to. I felt relieved knowing what was my problem and knowing exactly how to fix it. The problem was my window awnings on the side of my house. I thought just by having them attached to the building itself would be enough, but was obviously wrong. My solution was to add two pillars per awning making it a total of six pillars. In addition, for safe measure

I added another pillar next to what would be the car parking spot and made my base thicker. Now that I believed I had fixed the problem properly, I was exciting again to see the new print and whether or not I was right with how to go about the problem. As it was printing, I noticed the pillars starting to appear and then U knew right then and there everything would work out.

The Finale

Once the second printing of my house was done, I couldn't have been happier with the result. It looked just like my design, which is the point, but seeing my design come to life was such a cool and interesting thing to witness and create. There is so much more I wanted to add to my house, but it was important to me to find a good stopping point in order to experience the

printing process. I am looking forward to going back and adding in the missing sections of my house as well as the smaller details. As I stated, the most valued thing I took and learned from the material inquiry was a newfound interest in 3D designing and printing. The process and the machinery is incredibly fascinating and so much fun. It was also very easy to follow and with practice get the hang of the controls very easily and quickly. I enjoyed myself so much so that doing something involving Tinkercad and 3D printing is a consideration for my impossible project. I had the idea of creating a bunch of smaller components and then adding/attaching them to one another in order to create one big object. I had in mind in creating a face, but I am still open to other ideas. In an art classroom, I would absolutely love having a 3D printer(s). I think having something like this would be of great use and great learning tool for various school subjects, not just for the arts. Such as the example with a teacher having his students create their own house and teaching them about erosion. I would use it in the sense of exercising community building. Just like in cardboard city, I would have my students build their own house or object and then together as a class make it into a city. They would get to talk to each other and get know one another better through their creation. It would take a lot of time, but I believe the end result would look beautiful all together.