Butterfly PIP

Description: 

Our assignment was to create a telescoping fidget device by using sketch offsets and cut/boss extrusions, we chose to do this in the shape of a butterfly because it seemed do-able but not too simple. The butterfly we printed is 9x7x1cm and can contract like a fidget and also sit nicely as a decoration, as we picked a color that we found aesthetically pleasing. 

*Find my partners printables report here: @AnwithaAllur_2501952

Problem Statement: 

 You will be asked to create a telescoping fidget device by using your knowledge with the sketch offsets and drafted extrusions/cuts tools. You and a partner will be “accountabillbuddies”. This means you will help each other along the way and build off of each others ideas, as well as (preferably) have the same design. You will not be required to have identical designs, although it will make the process easier. 

Assembly/Design Instructions:

Step one: Choose a design/image to model, solidworks does not like to extrude shapes with a lot of points, so choosing something that is more rounded would make this process a lot easier. 

Step two:  Create a rectangle that is 8x8cm, if you're copying our butterfly, do a 9x7, that all depends on what design you chose. Then boss extrude that shape to any thickness, as it is temporary, put your design image onto the shape by adding a face, to add a face to a shape you right click on the front of your model, select face<1, when the menu pops up, select advanced, then appearance, and then browse to choose what file you would like to select (make sure you are on “All image files”). Once you have your image you can drag it to how you want it to fit your shape. 

Step three: Make sure you are sketching on the front plane, then use either lines or arcs to trace your image, make sure all of your arcs are tangent. Once you have a look you are satisfied with, begin offsetting 0.1cm inwards as many times as you can before they touch. 

Step four: Delete the first boss extrude that you made and then create a new one by clicking boss extrude, first set the height to 1.00 cm, and click on the degree symbol in order to set it to 25cm, then click check. 

Step five: After you've created your first boss extrude, go to cut extrude and click the second outermost layer, then click the reverse button, and change “blind” to “through all”, set the degree to 25cm again and click check. 

Step six: Continue repeating step four and five until you've done all of the extrudes you can, for all of your new boss extrudes, change “blind” to “up to surface”, so that way you can more easily adjust the height if you encounter problems. 

Step seven: Click the mirror tool then select the plane that your sketch is on, then change the menu options to bodies and click “merge solids”, and click the check.

Step eight (last step): Save your file as a 3mf and pick a color to print, we used hot pink!

Our design changes: 

Our butterfly took much longer than expected because we encountered many issues with solid works due to the many points and lines on our butterfly, as well as because the whole thing was not symmetrical. The first time we had to re-do our butterfly because we could not offset more than four times, even after we fixed what we thought was the problem, the option to offset inwards at all after one time disappeared. After trying about three different models for our butterfly, we decided we would use ovals and then cut out the inside so that the shape itself was much simpler. We also downsized our butterfly and offset outwards until we reached the end of our 9x7 box, because we were having too many problems offsetting inwards. Although our butterfly ended up becoming mostly a circle by the outermost layer, we were happy to be able to resolve our issues and move forward.