Chris Traynor’s Portfolio

Hey, my name is Chris Traynor and I am currently studying economics at JMU to find a place as a register representative helping people with their finances. In other words, I would like to be a stock broker. Throughout high school I place various sports, such as football, baseball, swimming, track, and golf, but now I only play the occasional pick up game with my friends. I am very career focused with most of my day involving reading about monetary policy, trading strategies, sectors of the stock market, and expanding my network. As of right now, my favorite show is Suits, but that is only because Game of Thrones and Billions are off season.

I am completely new 3D printing so it should be interesting to see how exactly it works as well as how to write the code to make my own design.

https://www.thingiverse.com/traynoca

Thingiverse Model

Baby Groot Keychain by kresty

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2550641

 

The reason that I choose to print a tiny Groot for my first assignment is mainly due to the size of it. It seems hard to mess up and since I am new to 3D printing, it should be a good place to start. Also, I have seen the Marvel movies and the Guardians of the Galaxy was definitely one of the better ones.

Thingiverse Print

My first attempt during the class turned out to be a failure due to the printer dragging one of the hands off the board thus creating a pile up of printer filament. However, adding a base layer allowed for the print to be more stable and, as one can see, lead to a successful outcome. The supports used for the head were removed as well as the base and were surprisingly difficult to take off. Tools were needed because by the time I had made it over to the lab, it had already cooled and was almost stuck to the board. In the end, the tiny groot turned out to better than expected and was an overall successful print.

https://www.thingiverse.com/make:592352

20 Forms in Tinkercad

First Image:

  • Ice Cream Cone: For this design, I rotated a cone on its side then placed three spheres along the side with one smaller sphere on top of the last scoop of ice cream.
  • The Three Pyramids: I placed down three pyramids of different sizes and positioned a flat rectangular prism at their bases to create sand.
  • Spider Man Symbol: I positioned a circle in the center of six rectangular prisms jetting out in different directions and added six more to create the legs of the symbol. To make sure they were close to a right angle I used the ruler tool as a guide.
  • Cursive “Chris”: I simply took the scribble tool and wrote my name in script.
  • Small House: This required six rectangular prisms of varying sizes with four of them made into holes and positioned two triangular prisms on top of them.
  • Purple JMU: This was one of the easiest because all I did was type JMU into text and made it purple.
  • Diamond Ring: I resized the diamond to make it fit the ring and lowered it through the grid in order to place it on top of it. Then changed the color to gold and light blue.
  • Olympic Rings: I changed the color of five ring shapes and placed them in the positions of the symbol for the Olympics.
  • USA: This design involved typing out USA in the text shape, drawing the shape of the United States with the scribble tool, reshaped the size of the stars, and finally grouped them all together.
  • The Castle: I resized the cylinders and the cones to fit onto of each other then used the align tool to make sure they are centered onto of each other. Finally, I made a hole with half a cylinder to make the front door.

Second Image:

  • Cake: First, I made a white cylinder, decorated it with brown spheres, and used more cylinders topped with cones this time for the candles.
  • Arrow: I took a green triangular prism and a green rectangular prism and positioned them side by side.
  •  Hokey Stick and Puck: I took two rectangular prisms and placed them adjacent to each other accompanied by a black cylinder for the puck.
  • American Flag: The base of the flag is a red rectangular prism with longer, thinner rectangular prisms to create strips. Then, I used a navy blue rectangular prism with stars on top.
  • Pickaxe: I drew the point for the pickaxe using the scribble tool then made a long cylinder for the handle.
  • Smiley Face: The two eyes are just basic black cylinders with a half cylinder for the smile.
  • Theta Chi (OX): The actual OX was made using the text tool, but to make it the O a theta, I had to use a rectangular prism in the center of it.
  • Rocket Ship: I positioned a cone on top of a cylinder then used the align tool to center it. The wings were then made by a thinned out triangular prism.
  • Honey Comb: I just took two hexagonal prisms and placed one inside the other. Then, I made one a hole.
  • Night Sky: I used the whole tool along with a white cylinder to make a moon and then took a yellow star and a black, flattened rectangular prism to make the rest.

Third Image

  • Scarface Simplistic: First, I converted an image from some Scarface poster I found online to an SVG file using a website. Then, I simply imported the image to a new workplane and changed the color to black.
  • https://www.pinterest.com/pin/520517669403565153/

Tinkercad Print

  • While the majority of it was successful, there was an issue with the “Scar” part of Scarface and as one can see it ended up falling off. I did not get to see it happen in the process, but when it was taken off of the printer the “Scar” was mainly just tangled filament bunched up hanging off the side. My theory is that the filament setting was set too thick causing the thin letters of the “Scar” to not properly fill. The evidence for this is that the “Face” part of it was supposed to be a hole, but as one can see it is partially filled. However, it is possible that it was not too thick, but there was a slight gap in between where the “Scar” was supposed to be printed and the printing board. If that was the case a gradient layer could have fixed the problem, but there is also the possibility that I could have accidentally ripped the lettering off in the process. In the end, while it did have issues, the print was an overall success.

Flying Pig: Group Project with Wayne Aung

  • The final print turned out better than either of us had thought it would and the proposed solutions that were drafted after the first attempt proved to be successful. The ears and the tail were an issue simply because they were too thin thus easily breaking off. This was fixed by simply making them thicker creating more stability and we also quickly added holes for the nostril. The only difficult part was removing all of the generated support and as one could see, under the armpits of the pig, not all of it was able to be removed.
  • https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3377810

20 Forms in Fusion 360

  • First Image
    • Text: Here, I was testing out how the text tool worked by just choosing the vertical plane and writing my name.
    • Empty Box: I created a cube shape then modified it by using the shell tool.
    • Two Half Cylinders: The half cylinders were made by using the split tool vertically through a simple cylinder.
    • Curved Box: I wanted to try out the fillet tool by just smoothing out the corners of a box that I made.
    • Two Floating Cylinders: I was testing out the hole tool by taking a spring shape and making a larger cube to erase most of it.
    • Curved Tube: The tube was made by using the sweep tool and the conic curve. First, I drew the curved line then made a vertical circle and finished it off by selecting the two sketches with the sweep tool.
    • Connected Square and Circle: First, I drew a square then raised a sketch of a circle right above the square. Then I selected the two with the loft tool.
    • Corner Piece with Hole: I combined two rectangular prisms to create a corner then tried out the hole tool again to make a hole in the corner.
    • Arrow: For this, I drew a sketch of a few connected lines then used the extrude tool to make a shape.
    • Cylinder on Rectangular Prism: This was my first attempt at just combining shapes together just by moving them to the same area.
  • Second Image:
    • Quarter Cylinder: I drew my first shape as a corner and then combined it with the cylinder using the cut tool to remove three fourths of it.
    • Ramp: To get familiar with the draft tool, I took a square and applied it to the side seen above.
    • Ring (Grey): Here, I wanted to use the revolve tool on a sketch of a triangle and that is what it produced.
    • Ring (Gold): I wanted to see how to change colors on Fusion so I took a torus shape and the appearance tool to change the color from grey to gold.
    • Oval: I had yet to use the eclipse sketch tool so this was my successful attempt at using it. I made it a shape in order to see it better.
    • Cut Rectangular Prism: For this I simply took a vertical rectangular prism and a vertical cylinder to see if I could cut off just the corner. The move/copy tool was also used to position it better.
    • Three Combined Rings (Celtic Knots Attempt): Here I tried to follow the celtic knot directions, but sadly was not successful and was unsure how to fix it.
    • Sphere and Cylinder: Here, I just wanted to practice moving around the shapes and see if I could get the sphere and cylinder together floating.
    • Spline Sketch: This was just me messing around with the spline sketch tool too see if I could make a shape.

Fusion 360 Print

  • The actual print was a success, but designing the shape that came out is where I had the most trouble. The technique I was trying to employ was called Celtic Knots that were supposed to look like a series of chain links put together, but for some reason it came out looking like a Tesla coil. Regardless, it still looked decent enough to print even though it came out looking completely different than my original design. The first attempt was a failure, but I quickly fixed it by adding a gradient layer with generated support to hold everything together.

Fusion 360 Vase Design

  • While Fusion 360 was difficult grasp initially, through the different tutorials on YouTube and various other websites, this vase was not as trying as I thought it was going to be. The only new part was constructing the offset plain, which was pretty straight forward when considering it was only a two step process (choosing which direction the sketch would face, then raising or lowering it). The first image shows the sketch in the middle of the vase, while the second shows what can be seen on the top of it. From there, I just selected each image using the loft tool then slightly adjusted them by switching it from connected to direction.
  • My final design goes beyond the video by showing creating a more stable shape rather than the zig zag lines on each sketch as made in the clip. I wanted the shape to be more progressive and linear than the video and as one can see in the finished product below, that is exactly what I accomplished.

Fusion 360 Vase Prints

  • Since I am not the best at Fusion 360 quite yet, I struggled just to get this pretty basic model. Throughout the printing process, I did not have much difficulty and did not even have to generate any support or include a gradient layer. The only somewhat difficult part was when I was transferring over the file from Fusion 360 to the lulzbot printer (I had to rotate the print so that it would print straight up rather than on its side.
  • https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3411406

20 Forms in OpenSCAD

  • First Picture:
    • Line of Cones: I used the for() command and set it to [10,10,100] to get a series of cones in a row.
    • Rotated Cylinder: I used both the translate tool as well as the rotate tool (set to an angle of 45 degrees) to have it above the rows of cones.
    • Cylinder: Here, I was just trying out how to make difference shapes, specifically, I was testing out the $fn tool to make the cylinder smoother.
    • Sphere with Cylinder through Bottom: For this form, I was trying to make a microphone by increasing the height of the cylinder as well as the making a large sphere.
    • Lamp Shade: All I did was make the radius 1 larger than the radius 2 when coding the cylinder.
    • Upside down Lamp Shade: I did the same thing as the normal lamp shade, but in reverse.
    • Cube: I just was still testing out how to make shapes here by seeing if I could create a simple cube.
    • Two cubes in one: Here, I was testing to see if I could combine shapes while using the rotate tool to put the second cube at a slight angle.
    • Big Sphere: For this one, I was seeing the different sizes I could make a sphere and getting a feel for how the radius affects it.
    • Small Sphere: Similar to the big sphere, I was seeing how small I could make a sphere and still have it visible.
  • Second Picture
    • Cube: Here, I wanted to see how to lower and raise an object around the axis by using the translate tool.
    • Two Thin Cylinder Cross: I used the rotate and translate tool to see if I could start making more complex objects.
    • Sphere with Cube (Upper): I was testing out how to group objects together using the module tool with a sphere and cube. I grouped it together then used the translate tool to move it.
    • Sphere with Cube (Lower): I did the same thing as the upper version, but set the translate coordinates to negative values.
    • Rotated Flying Cube: I used both the rotate tool (set to 45 degrees) and the translate tool (moved along the y axis)
    • Saturn: I simply made a circle and a sphere in the center.
    • Cube with Hole (attempted): For some reason, I could not get the difference tool to work properly resulting in just a normal cube.
    • Square: I wanted to see if I could make 2d objects just as easily as 3d resulting in the square (translate tool used as well to be visible)
    • Thimble: I took three different cylinders (all with varying heights) and used the translate tool to lower and raise them.
    • Rotated Circle: Here, I created a circle while used the rotating tool at a 45 degree angle.

OpenSCAD Print

  • Considering all I printed was a basic cube, the print was an easy success. The only difficulty I had was trying to figure out how to export an object, but once that was accomplished the print finished within 45 minutes even when it was set to 200% its size when first added to the printing program.

Super Mario Nameplate by Chris Traynor and Wayne Aung

  • https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3451286
  • The Super Mario Nameplate was the most difficult project that my partner and I have done in the class. The amount of code needed to create a randomized nameplate with customizable features was much larger than we originally anticipated and we ran into an issue when printing that caused to use a raft to keep the nameplate from morphing the corners. Overall, the project came out great and we were both surprised how much of the code we were able to understand.

Reflections and Future Projects

  • In all honesty, when I started this course I had no idea that there was actually some work that needed to be done to successfully 3D print an object or design. My original thought was that all you had to do was download some files then hook it up to the printer and lo and behold the print was done. However, as I began to learn about what a lulzbot and ultimaker were as well as programs such as Tinkercad, Fusion 360, and OpenSCAD, it became prevalent that this was more of a skill rather than something the average person could accomplish.
  • A future project that I have in mind would be a 3D print of a B-29 bomber from World War II for my Dad. His entire career he has been an aerospace engineer working on airplane parts and recently we took him to an annual air show where they fly the B-29 around for about a half hour with other various planes so this gift would be right up his alley. While I cannot think of anything else specific that I would print in the immediate future, it would be a nice tool for printing out gifts for my relatives and friends. It is not always easy to find the perfect gift so it might actually be easier to either find a design online or use a 3D design program learned in this class to create the perfect present.