3D modelling a Lego Man
As a kid I used to stay up *past my bedtime* to play with lego and build cities. When I went to bed I just imagined building stuff in my head.
Then I stopped building things. Now entering the *sad years of childhood*. I was really disappointed when playdates started being all about getting ice cream and talking. TL;DR we need to make lego cool again (besides the point).
Recently, I’ve been channeling my inner child with a fascination for 3D printing 🤓.
I started monkeying with TinkerCAD an Autodesk 3D design software.
Why?
Because 3D printing is crazyyyyy! Companies like Axial3D, open meals and Dimanex are working on medical supplies, food and solar powered cars with 3D printed parts, respectively. I had one of those ‘I NEED to take a deep dive into this technology’ moments.
I’ve been testing tinkerCAD for a few hours now, and it’s incredibly fun. I’m on vacation and I can’t get myself off the software. That’s how you know 😎.
What is 3D printing?
An exciting new form of manufacturing: additive manufacturing ✨
It stacks many 2D layers, to create a 3D image. Like piling a bunch of pancakes will make a cylinder. There are different techniques (aka types of printers) that do this.
3DP has tons of pros! Less waste; more detailed models; live-tissue manufacturing; faster, etc. It’s legit.
How it works
Step 1: use a computer-aided design (CAD) software to make something beautiful 🌞. I’ll be using tinkerCAD 50% because it is highly recommended and 50% because the name is silly + fun.
Step 2: prepare the software for printing (slice it)
Step 3: Print it with a 3D printer of your choice
Designing 3D objects
After flipping through the functions, and learning how to be a trained tinker technician, I wanted to build something fun & exciting. Obviously, I chose a lego man.
In order to 3D design anything, you’ll need to break down your model and create a blueprint.
For example, if you were designing a wrench, you’d section it like so:
Creating a 2D-sectioned blueprint makes turning it 3D way easier.
A lego man is more difficult than a wrench, so I opted to find a pre-sectioned, pre-blueprinted design. I ended up roughly following this paper.
It included the blue print measurements for a life sized lego man:
I began going at this design, by breaking up each of the parts into simpler geometries.
For example, take this lil guy:
It could be broken into three sections.
Sectioning a 2D blueprint makes turning it 3D way easier.
Since this is an arm, all the shapes will be cylindrical, even though in the 2D image, it looks like the bottom portion could be made from a cube/rectangular figure.
Here’s the configuration: (broken down into the 3 parts)
The middle one has a half-sphere curve at the bottom, that’s not part of the original diagram, but I constructed it like that so the final lego man looked “cleaner”.
With the sectioned bits, turning a 2D sketch into a 3D object is no problemo👩🎨
After *painfully* (but excitedly) going through each of the parts of the 2D lego man, my 3D lego buddy was constructed 🤩.
One of the key problems I ran into was figuring out how the advanced functions in TinkerCAD operated. Here are some links to videos that I found out about too late.
PS. Having a good, pre-measured blueprint will save you lots of head banging
Now that I can design lego figures… maybe I’ll learn how to make something more useful 😉 Stay tuned.
Note: I’m currently out exploring Eastern Europe, I’ve swam in 1 water fountain, saw 4 horses, ate 14 meals that were less than $2 , called my mom twice, consumed 274831 baklavas (if you know, you know), went to 3 castles and saw exactly 0 3D printers. I’ve been learning how to navigate TinkerCAD — a 3D design software (I won’t actually be printing anything until I get back to civilization).
Before you go…
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To continue you down the rabbit hole of manufacturing, you can read about types of printers or foodtech printing. Happy manufacturing knowledge☀️
