Birdhouses

thingiverse

Grade 9 students were assigned a hand drawing project to create multiple views of a birdhouse designed for specific birds. Impressed by their creativity, the teacher recreated some designs in SketchUp and made them printable. However, the resulting SketchUp files lack functionality due to arcs inside that eliminate the need for support while maintaining a house-like appearance with a hole. The SketchUp files match the actual size of the birdhouses, but the .stl files are scaled down by 25% or 18%. Ashley's birdhouse is designed for a Chickadee and includes a removable birdbath filled through the chimney. Bryce's and Winfield's birdhouses are also for Chickadees, while Mario's is for a wood duck, necessitating different scaling. All birdhouses were 3D printed using ABS plastic, with support materials removed and cleaned up before being smoothened with acetone. The printing settings were set at a nozzle temperature of 220 degrees Celsius, a bed temperature of 90 degrees Celsius, an infill rate of 10%, and four shells. Ashley's birdhouse required external support, while Bryce's needed none; Mario's and Winfield's demanded external assistance as well. Some 3D print slicing software allows for adjustment of the support value. The birdhouses were designed with arcs inside walls/ceilings to avoid internal support during printing. If your software doesn't allow support value alteration, you can still print them but may need tweezers or needle-nose pliers to remove support via the bird entrance hole.