Learning how to design with 3D modeling

With graduation approaching, and with this being my final blog post of the semester, I feel like it will be fitting to talk about my final experience 3D printing at SJU—something that I am currently doing for a final project. I am enrolled in

The program I used to design the case was a website called tinkercad. I first learned about this program when I took a 3D printing class here at SJU a couple of semesters ago. The program is fairly simple to use and it doesn’t take a lot of time to learn how operate it. It gives you the option you to import .stl files (files that are already converted into 3D objects) or you can choose to create your own object based on the shapes they give you.

For this specific project I created a case on my own using basic shapes like rectangles, tubes, and spheres. I also had to use the “hole” function to create holes and make parts hollow where they needed to be. I had to add a hole where the LCD screen needed to be placed in order to display the information to the viewer about the water quality.

One challenge that I had when making this case was making sure all the dimensions were consistent and lined up with each other throughout the design process. Once I finished designing the case, I had to split the object into two halves to make sure that it would fit on the bed of the printer.

All in all, this was a great learning experience for me that dealt with 3D modeling and gave me valuable experience with something that I wasn’t too familiar with. This was the first time I had to create my own object for 3D printing and I am excited to see how it turns out.