SketchUp Make Tutorial: custom servo wheel

Overview

In this tutorial, you will use Google's free 3D modeling software SketchUp Make to customize a servo wheel part with your own text. You will then export it to STL format, readable by MHC's 3D printer. Your wheels will be printed to become part of next week's lab project: your first little robot!

Steps

• 1. Instead of building our part completely from scratch, we will work with an existing model from thingiverse (a web site with many user-uploaded models). The part we will use is a servo wheel that will fit the motors for next week's robot. Go to the part's page and click the Download This Thing! link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:30236/.

• 1. Then,  click on the (only) file named Roda_minibots_I.stl, which will cause it to download; take note of where the downloaded file ends up. 

• 1. Now open SketchUp Make and click Start using SketchUp to create a new SketchUp file.

• 1. Save your file as usernameServoWheel.skp -- for example, mine would be astjohnServoWheel.skp.

  2. By default, the figure of a man will be included in your sketch to give you some idea of scale. However, we just want to get a feel for the software (and our 3D printer will scale automatically). Choose the Selection tool from the left side of the toolbar. 

• 1. Drag a rectangle that includes the figure of the man. 

• 1. If you have selected the figure properly, it should be highlighted with a blue rectangle. Press the delete button to remove the figure.

• 1. Now we will import the part we downloaded from thingiverse. From the File menu, select Import...

• 1. Navigate to the Roda_minibots_I.stl file and click Import.

• 1. You will see a (very tiny) wheel model appear at the Origin, which is at the intersection of the (faint) blue, green and red axes.

• 1. To get a better view, select the Zoom extents tool from the toolbar; this will automatically adjust the view to fit your model.

• 1. You should see the wheel come into view.

• 1. Try selecting the Orbit tool from the toolbar. Dragging the mouse will allow you to rotate the view.

• 1. Now we will customize our wheel by adding some text. From the Tools menu, select the 3D Text Tool.

• 1. This will pop up a dialog that allows you to input your text and desired text height; a value of about 1/16" will work well for our purposes. Make sure that the Filled and Extruded boxes are checked. The rest of the settings probably need to be changed since the wheel is so small. Click the Fonts button to pop up another dialog to edit additional settings. In particular, you can change the width of the text; use something like 1/4". Check that the original dialog shows your desired text, width and height, then click the Place button. 

• 1. Once you click Place, you will find that the resulting text moves with your mouse. Move it so that it is on top of the a flat area of the wheel near an edge; you should see a little label with On face appear. When you are happy with the positioning, double-click the mouse to finish placing your text.

• 1. Now add another piece of text. This time, after clicking Place, try a single click when the text is in an On face position.

• 1. After this single click, moving your mouse will change the position of the text while maintaining its attachment to the plane (or face) of the wheel. Move until you are happy with the text position and click again to complete the placement.

• 1. Now, use the Orbit tool to confirm that your text is really "stuck" to the wheel part by viewing it from the side. 

• 1. Congratulations! You've finished building your 3D model. Now try exporting it to a format that is readable by our 3D printer: STL (STereoLithography) format. To do so (assuming the correct extension has been installed for SketchUp), go to the File menu and select Export STL...

• 1. A dialog will pop up -- be sure to uncheck the Export selected geometry only box!

• 1. Be upload both the .skp and .stl files to moodle!

Sample files below