For my exam project, I chose to create a succulent holder. At first, I wasn’t sure what my design would look like, so I began with a basic Hexagonal shape with a hole in it for the succulent. I knew that I wanted it to hang, so I added a small hole on each side of the holder to thread string through.
I later decided I wanted it to be a character, and I chose Darth Vader. I went back and changed the shape to a cylinder instead of a hexagon.
I messed around with the sides of the design until I got them to look the most like Darth Vader. A challenge that I encountered while I was designing my project was the support of the design. The succulent holder needed support on the bottom to keep the crisp design that I wanted. I tried to flip the design upside down to see if it required less support that way, but it would have needed more.
It does not appear to need any support in the picture, but the entire inside would have required support due to the fact that it is hollow inside. I decided I would print it right side up because that option would use the least amount of support. Another issue that I encountered while designing this project was getting the mask’s mouth to look right. I started by putting a triangle on the face and having it stick out, but it didn’t look right, so I made a hole where that was. I needed a way to add the lines in the mouth, which was very difficult, but I made very skinny rectangular prisms of various sizes and placed them inside the mouth just like the real Darth Vader mask. My favorite part of making this design was that it could be anything I wanted it to be, and there were no set parameters for the actual design itself, other than it had to be a succulent holder or toy. For my design, I chose to use Tinkercad. I decided to use tinkercad over a more advanced program, such as fusion 360, was because I felt that it would help me make a more refined design because I am more comfortable with it. I am printing my project over the weekend and am very excited to see how it turns out.