MD Wave Maker Coin

Lesson Plan and Constraints: 

Our task was to create a 3D-printed coin that would act as a physical logo for ourselves. 

• All coins must be made from an initial revolve resulting in a coin that is 6cm in diameter and 1.25cm in thickness.
• Must not require ANY supports, (no supports).
• Should be gear-esque in nature.
• NO moving parts, (no gyroscopes, fidget spinners, etc.)
• Must slope downwards towards the center in some fashion.

Summary and General Advice:

My maker coin consists of a semi-circle-shaped with waves to represent my first name initial which is “M” and a semi-circle beneath it which is a beach in the shape of my last name initial which is “D”. I wanted a coin that would express who I am and the beach is the ideal inspiration to create an interesting design.

For anyone making their own Maker Coin, I would advise using patterning tools such as the circular pattern tool for the waves on the perimeter and the linear pattern tool for the raised squares within the semi-circle. It makes things much easier than doing it one at a time. You are also able to see how my coin transformed from my original sketch as a lot of the shapes I.E. the waves are fluid shapes that each individual can create to their own liking. 

Overview and Design Choices:

Before I created my maker coin I took to the internet for inspiration. I browsed Pinterest as well as the printables pages for previously made coins. This gave me the idea to create something that revolves around one of my greatest loves, the ocean. The greatest piece of inspiration was the barrel of waves just before they crash back onto themselves (shown below). 

Once I had the main idea for what I wanted to create I decided to compile my thoughts into an initial sketch which is circled in red. The blue circles highlight the base and how I wanted it to look horizontally.  You can see the idea for how I wanted the horizontal sketch to be revolved 360 degrees in the bottom left circle. The bottom right circle highlights my initial idea for how I wanted to extrude the beach part of the design.  As for the green circles, it displays how I wanted the edge to look initially but I transformed that later down the road to accommodate to the orientation of the 3D printer. 

As a majority of the design was to be made using fluid sketches with the spline tool it was difficult to really measure out how I wanted to implement the waves. I sectioned off the outer construction circle in anticipation of the edge waves and made an inner circle so I could section out the viable area to apply the large waves and beach.

After the sketch and revolve for the coin I started to create the perimeter waves. As the waves would be identical with the help of the circular pattern tool I was able to fit more waves on the maker coin than in my original sketch drawing. The initial sketch had 15 waves while the maker coin had 18 waves. 

I also decided to revolve cut part of the semi-circle which differed from the beginning as I thought it would be cool to have a middle section that would separate the waves and beach slightly. 

The waves are made to each individual’s liking but I decided to square off my maker coin using construction geometry so I could make waves that are similar to each other but not the same because I liked the added character of not everything being always perfect. 

I inverted the birds and placed them in different areas because I tough it fit better. Also, the cut revolved them so they only slightly stook out but this revolving came back to bite me once printed as the detail was too small in terms of the scale and the birds didn't end u showing up. I would recommend to not revolve cut them if I was to try again. 

With the help of the linear pattern tool, I made the change to have 5 rows for the “sand” instead of 4 as I had more room to fit an extra row and thought it looked more aesthetically pleasing.

Lastly for 3D printing orientation, I could have no overhanging edges for the perimeter waves as they wouldn’t be able to build correctly and most likely fail. What I had to do was fillet the edges of the wave to round them off to ensure no overhangs were present.