Owl Test Print - 35 mm

thingiverse

This is a tried-and-true test print I've relied on for years. To be honest, I'm not even sure where I got this file from anymore - it was downloaded from Thingiverse somehow. I often use this "owl" as a quick check after a print fails. When something doesn't work out, I'll then print an owl to see if everything's okay. If the owl prints successfully, it usually means there was something amiss with the previous print. The whole process takes less than an hour, and sometimes I resize him for some variety. He doesn't need supports or a raft, and it's rare when the owl doesn't come out right. The original owl design was quite large, about 90mm tall and had around 80,000 polygons - which made my software crash in Rhino. So, I reduced it to 20,000 polygons and scaled him down to about 35mm tall. I also added some text ("2018") on his feet because I've ended up with a lot of owls over time and it might be nice to know when they were printed. As it happens, I probably have an owl from way back in 2015 printed on my first 3D printer, the Makerbot 2x. Now I'm using a Ultimaker 3, but I was thinking of trying out the new Makerbot Replicator Mini - my coworker has one and it's been printing great. Teaching at a middle school means grades 6-8 would love to see this owl in action, but honestly, it's mostly a test print for teachers or other 3D users.