Chemistry Glass Stirrer Grips

prusaprinters

We were asked by the chemistry department to create a grip or holder to go onto the edge of a glass stirrer. The holders were also made with the objective that fewer stirrers would roll off the table and shatter. Our objective was to create a grip that would fit the diameter of any stirrer as well as a function for it to rest on a table without rolling away. How I Designed This We began by brainstorming how to create a “one size fits all” grip while printing with plastic. To help with this problem, we decided to print the grips using a flexible filament. Although the design of our shape had to be designed to fit multiple diameters, the flexible filament allowed us some leeway with our final product. Our original design was a trapezoid that had a hexagonal hole in the center that started as 0.70 cm in diameter and closed to 0.48 cm in diameter. The trapezoid had a base of 3 cm and 1 cm and was 1.5 cm tall. We also had different length extrusions, ranging from 1 cm to 4 cm. We also carved the words “SHS Chemistry” into the side of the trapezoid as a means of decorating the item. This first design, though very good at preventing the stirrer from rolling off the table, did not satisfy the goal of making a comfortable grip for students to use. The hexagon exterior was too bulky to comfortably hold in your hand and moving into our second model, we took these problems into consideration. For our second prototype model, we readjusted our design to make the exterior of the grip a hexagonal shape instead of a trapezoid; however one side remained longer than the others. This was to ensure that the grips did not roll easily. After consulting with Mr. Buckley and testing the grips with the stirrers ourselves, we discovered that the flat edge did not function significantly better than just a regular hexagon, and since this edge made it harder for students to hold, we designed our third prototype to have a simple, hexagonal-shaped exterior. The last minor change we had to make to grips to make our final model was a small rotation to the inner hexagonal hole. The exterior and interior hexagons were originally oriented in the same direction so that each leg was parallel; however, this would have caused overhang while printing To fix this problem, we rotated the inside hexagon feature 30 degrees clockwise so that the inner hexagon had a corner facing up and the legs were not parallel. This ensured that the angle the printer was printing at was not too sharp so as to create overhang and printing issues. Lesson Plan and Activity ======================== Goal: Make grips for the chemistry department that a) are comfortable for students to hold, b) prevent the grips from rolling off of the table, and c) fit the multiple diameters of the different glass stirrers. Category: 3D Printing