Kitronik, a provider of electronic project kits and educational resources for schools, has published a new kit which enables students and makers to create a 3D printed desktop lamp. Kitronic believes the kit would make an ideal Design & Technology project for schools.
Having worked with over 3,000 UK schools on its do-it-yourself kit projects, Kitronic has poured its wealth of educational experience into its latest project, which requires students and makers to get stuck in with CAD and 3D printing technology. Kitronic’s latest bright idea comes in the form of a 3D printable desktop lamp, which could be designed and built as part of a Design & Technology class or at home. The project is cheap and educational, and each participant gets to take home a useful object at the end of the project.
“We wanted to create another project that enabled people to build their own 3D printed everyday objects,” explained Kitronik Co-Founder Kevin Spurr. “Like the USB stick cover we released last year, the lamp project is great as it fuses together electronics and 3D printing, enabling people to create something they can use everyday.”
As with most Kitronic projects, the difficulty level is up to the teacher or maker. Kitronic has supplied both the CAD model of the lamp and a design template, enabling students to simply try their hand at 3D printing, or to get really stuck in and design their own version using CAD software. All resources for the lamp project were designed in Autodesk Fusion 360, software which is free for educational users.
Kitronic 3D printed its own version of the desktop lamp on a Robox 3D printer using White ColorFabb XT for the exterior and Green/Blue PLA for the interior. Makers, of course, have free reign over which colors they use, and can color their stylish rectangular lamp to suit their bedroom, office, or personality. The 3D printable parts of the lamp are compatible with Kitronic’s own 5V LED lamp kit.
Sean Drummond, a product design student carrying out a year of work experience with Kitronic, attempted to build the 3D printed lamp himself, and encountered a slight problem when trying to fit the internal and external components together. To make the pieces fit together more easily, Drummond made the interior 0.35 mm smaller, and makers should no longer encounter such an issue. The student also found the following 3D printer settings to be most effective:
Inner
Material: PLA
Temperature: 195
Flow: 100%
Infill: 20-25%
Outer
Material: ColorFabb XT
Temperature: 235
Flow: 100%
Infill: 20-25%
The 3D printable lamp is the latest in a series of free-to-use Kitronic projects, following on from 3D Printed USB Stick Cases developed in 2015 and various CAD resources for BBC micro:bit, a code-sharing platform for young learners.
“It’s great to engage the students and schools we work with and show how useful and interesting the 3D printing is by creating resources that can be applied to household items,” Spurr said. “We’ve kept the designs simple so that it’s easy to see how they work, though they could easily be altered to create different coloured lampshades. In addition, all of the techniques described could be applied to cases for alternative types of products.”
