Project: Make a 3D Printed Quilt Piece

Now that you have made your first printable design in Tinkercad, you will create a design as part of a community collaborative project. This design will be used as part of a wall-hanging that other members of your community are contributing to as well.

This project is called the 3D Printed Quilt and is a community project where all members of a community can design and print a custom piece to be added to the quilt. Eventually it will be hung on the wall as an art installation.

Just like the custom keychain project, you will also be working from a template in Tinkercad to make this object. Your quilt piece might look something like this when you are finished:

We’d like you to contribute a design to our 3D Printed Quilt project and this activity will walk you through each of the steps you will need to design, download, and upload your piece for printing.

Activity: Make a 3D Printed Quilt Piece

1. Click on this link to the template you will use for your quilt piece: 3D Quilt Template-Tinkercad
   • As long as you are logged into Tinkercad this should open under your account.
   • If you are not logged in to Tinkercad, click “Sign In” in the top right.
2. Once you have the file open, click the “Copy & Tinker” button.
   
3. When the template appears on your workplane, you can begin customizing. You can add anything you’d like to the template, but don’t build too tall and don’t change the size of the template.
   
   DO NOT alter the size of the quilt piece.
4. When you have completed your design, it might look something like this. Make sure that there are no stray objects anywhere on your workplane because those will cause your print to fail.
   
5. After checking your workplane for stray objects, select all objects in your design by clicking and dragging over them to highlight them all in blue.
6. Once all the objects of your design are highlighted in blue, click the “Group” button at the top of the Tinkercad window.
   

Activity: Save & Download in Tinkercad

1. Click on “Design” in the menu in the top left. Then, select “Save” from the dropdown menu.
2. Click on “Design” again in the top left menu. Then, from the dropdown choose “Properties”.
3. When the Thing Properties window pops up, select the text and delete it. Change the name of the file to be your First Initial, Last Name-quilt. (ex: FLast-quilt)
   • Then, click “Save Changes”.
4. Check to make sure the filename has changed.
   
5. When the filename has changed, you are ready to download. Click “Design” again and choose “Download for 3D Printing” from the dropdown menu.
6. When the Download for 3D Printing box pops up, click “.STL” and make sure you see the file download into the bottom Chrome bar.
   

Activity: Upload to FabHive for Printing

When your design has been successfully renamed and downloaded from Tinkercad, you are ready to upload the file to FabHive. FabHive is the software that manages 3D prints at the Tech Center. Your design will be added to a queue of other design files and printed in turn. These next steps are very important to printing your design.

1. Open this website: dhf.fabhive.buzz
2. Drag your downloaded Tinkercad file from the Chrome bar into the “Uploads space in FabHive.
   
3. When you see the green check mark appear in the top right corner of your file in the Uploads section, your file has been successfully uploaded.
   
4. To be sure your print is uploaded, scroll down in FabHive to find the “Jobs” section and look for your print in that list.
   
5. When you have uploaded your print, you can talk to one of the instructors to find out more about how the quilt piece will print.