| Abstract | Rapid prototyping (RP) is a technology that can create the complex prototypes based on 3D-CAD models in minimum lead time. With speed of production and its flexibilities, RP has been accepted and is being widely used in several areas including education and learning. The advancement in technology have made it cheap and accessible for different types of applications and uses. Moreover, it has become more accessible in home or at schools. However, the operating cost of the machine is still high mainly due to the materials used. The commonly used materials such as PLA and ABS are expensive and difficult to source by kids. Therefore, in order to give kids opportunity to use and learn though this important technology, this study focused on designing and development of
RP (3d printer) for the kids. To make this technology accessible for the kids, the plasticine was used as a material using extrusion-based RP process. As the machine is targeted to be used by the kids, safety, simplicity, and fun were main concerns. In order to be more appropriate for kids, a new nozzle have been designed and constructed to be (1) safe and
compact size, and no accidental burns, (2) easy to load material, print the model, and
remove the finished part, (3) fun to design and play with plasticine which is non-toxic,
available in the market, and low price. Moreover, the experiments have been conducted to determine process parameters for creating 3D model. |