Creative Technology – Design Challenge #2
With an FDM printer, design and fabricate a 3D object that consists of at least 2 interlocking parts, which are not fused to each other, but cannot be separated from each other
Having very little experience with 3D printing prior to this, I decided that I wanted to experiment as much as possible, but still use very simple shapes. I decided to start with a cube, and to allow for interlocking, I extruded an ellipse out of the top face, creating a hole through the Z-axis.
On the top face of the cube, I then drew a rectangle, centered in the ellipse. I revolved this rectangle 360 degrees around the edge of the top face of the cube to create a ring.
To prevent the two parts from being fused together, I then drew a rectangle and a circle of the face of the cube where the ring intersected it. I extruded these shapes through the cube to create a tunnel.
For a built-in support to make my object more durable, I drew a rectangle through the middle of the tunnel and extruded it upwards to join with the ring, giving it a solid base to be printed on.
To complete my design, I decided to create another ring, by revolving the rectangle on the top face again, but this time around the opposite edge of the face. I liked the symmetry this gave my object.
Finally, I loaded this file into UP Studio. When I did so, I realized it was larger than the 2-inch limitation. I was able to use the functionality built into UP Studio to scale the object down by about 20%, resulting in my final product.
