Angry Bird

To pose myself the challenge to create an object that is assembled from separate components in different colours of PLA, I started designing an angry bird ... from scratch in FreeCAD. Although I'm still not completely happy about how the components fit together, I'm quite proud I was able to make the design based solely on a couple of 2D representations from the game.

Angry Birds is a trademark of Rovio Entertainment Ltd., to which I am not affiliated.

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

Ultimaker

Printer: 

Ultimaker Original

Rafts:

No

Supports: 

Yes

Resolution:

0.2

Infill: 

20%

Notes:

I did use supports on the tail, the brows, the bottom and the body, because I was not sure whether the overhangs would be handled correctly. You can prevent using supports by conveniently placing the objects on your build plate, however, I still recommend supports for the body.

The colours of PLA I used:

*body: Ultimate Red *bottom: Ultimate White *beak: Ultimate Yellow *brows: Performa Black *eyes: Ultimate White *tail: Performa Black

Post-Printing

I glued all items together (they don't 'click' together) with some two component epoxy.

How I Designed This

FreeCAD & Meshmixer operations

Next to the challenge of designing an assembled object, it required some very creative thinking, estimating sizes & positions, and CSG (constructive solid geometry) operations. I primarily used sketches, pad & revolve from the Part Design workbench to create objects. The CSG operations in the Part workbench were used to make the cutouts (negative spaces if you will) for objects to fit in. The head feathers (or comb?) were most difficult. They were done by drawing basic 2D shapes in the Draft workbench and the loft-operation in the Part workbench. Then I ended up with flat ends (as you can see in the FreeCAD design), but they were easily rounded off by exporting the STL, loading it into Meshmixer and using Sculpt operations to remove the sharp edges.

Category: Scans & Replicas