SKE Course Day 19

On returning to our mainly designing sessions, we began by re familiarising ourselves with Solid Works, by creating a jar shape, making it 3D, and turning it into a shell. It was great to be able to spend some time experimenting and learning the software for ourselves, which allowed us to come across problems and solutions as our students may when using the software.

We then moved on to working in our groups for the IKEA chair. We split up the task of drawing the chair into sections, and each created part files based on the individual components of the chair. With these parts completed we then began to assemble the chair using the assembly function. A picture of the completed chair and render will follow once completed.

Finally, we had a brief introduction to 3D printing, which we will be able to practice in the next session. Our task was to follow a template to create a switch cover (which will be 3D printed) for our task light. As long as we kept the switch holder the same size, the style and shape of the switch cover could be altered with ease.

The 3D printed element of the task light is yet another great way to really show off our skills, so that when speaking to colleagues, students or indeed in interviews for the NQT year, we have a good example of one product that has been created using a variety of methods found in many secondary school DT departments.