Cork Pals

Description: For this project, we were assigned to create two cork pal animals in TinkerCAD and to 3D print it. These cork pal animals are designed so that they fit into the cork, which is the body. The two animals that we created had to be related and tell a story.

Brainstorm: The first step to creating our cork pals was to brainstorm which animals we wanted to make. I wanted to do a tiger because my Chinese zodiac sign is the year of the tiger, and I wasn't sure what my second animal was going to be. I ended up doing a cat and a mouse because the tiger didn't work out. The cat's name is Tom, and he is always chasing Jerry. That's why the cat has such a long body. It is used to run fast and scare Jerry. They used to be best friends, but then one day, Jerry became best friends with someone else, and Tom was very jealous. Ever since then, Tom has been infuriated with Jerry and wants to frighten him.

Procedure: We started out by measuring our corks using a caliper. Mine measured to be 20 millimeters, so I made the ring 21 millimeters just to be safe. I printed out a tester ring, but it was too small, so I made a new one, that was still too small. Finally, my third ring fit, and it ended up fitting into both sides of both of my corks, so that part was done. Then, I focused on designing my animals on TinkerCAD. I originally wanted to do a tiger, and I tried designing one. However, it didn't look much like a tiger, and one of my classmates pointed out that it looked like the cat Tom from Tom and Jerry. I realized that it did and decided to switch, and I just had to make some small changes to perfect it. The designing of the tail was much easier and took me not very long. Then, I decided for my second animal to be Jerry, the mouse. The mouse head was much less complicated then the cat head, so I did that pretty quickly. I used a similar mouse tail as I did for the cat. Then, I printed out the cat head, and it fit! However, when I took off the cat tail supports, the tail came off, so after redesigning the tail a bit to be sturdier, my cat was completed. However, the mouse tail's leg snapped off, so I decided to just use the same tail that I used for the cat. After, printing it out, it worked.

Prototype 1: Cat Tail

After I took the supports off, the tail snapped off, and it looked broken and messy. I decided not to use this tail, so I reprinted another prototype.

Prototype 2: Cat Tail

I redesigned the tail so that it pointed upward. This way, it was sturdier and less likely to break.

Final Product: Cat

Final Product: Mouse

SOUL Reflection:

S: What worked - I think that something that went very well was the transition from the tiger to the cat. Changing my design to a cat was very easy, and all I had to do was remove some stripes that I had attempted to create for the tiger.
O: What didn't work - Something that didn't work was my rings in the beginning. They ended up being way too small, but after changing the measurements, it fit.
U: What did you learn - Something I learned was to not give up, and if you work hard, then you'll be left with a rewarding product in the end.
L: What prevented you from having a successful project - Something that prevented me from having a successful project was that I spent a long time working on the tiger before realizing that I should switch to making a cat instead, so I had to rush at the end because I didn't have much time left to complete the mouse.

WISCR: I think that the two qualities from WISCR that applied to me this project was I (Insightful and critical thinkers) and S (self-motivated) because I was trying to find constructive criticism so I could make my animals the best they could be. I was also very self-motivated and didn't give up when things didn't work out, and I was determined to create quality cork-pals.

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