Hogwarts Planter

Intention

The book series that made the biggest impact on me as I was growing up is Harry Potter. I grew up reading those books, watching those movies, and being in awe of this magical world. The young child in me still wants her acceptance letter to Hogwarts, but alas fantasy is fiction and I cannot actually attend a magical school in England. However, since this book series did leave such a favorable impression on me, I still like keeping Harry Potter memorabilia in my room. My room at home has the book series and other things I've collected Harry Potter related throughout my life, but my room in my house here does not have anything like that. I decided that I wanted to make my planter into a little model of Hogwarts to connect me back to my childhood now that I live 3000 miles away from home. 

Context

As a former student of architecture, designing Hogwarts in a 3D modeling software interested me. I decided to use a mostly hexagonal scheme when designing my planter so that all the geometries aligned in some way. This made the design complex and interesting.

Process + Procedure

To create this henna clock, I followed these steps:

1. Created the basic line work for the planter in Rhinoceros 3D
2. Imported the Rhinoceros 3D file into Fusion 360
3. Extruded all the curves to create the solid planter on Fusion 360
4. Combined all the different components of the planter into 1 body
5. Exported the planter into an stl file
6. Copied the stl file into an SD card, which I then used to import my project into the Zortrax 3D printer
7. Scaled my project down by 60%
8. Printed the planter
9. Peeled the bottom part off the planter
10. Sanded the planter to remove all the extra PLA
11. Spray painted the inside of the planter gold

Also, the significant scaling down of this planter made it more functional as a tealight candle holder than a planter.

Product

For my Hogwarts planter, I created the basic line work on Rhinoceros 3D. I proceeded to import this line work into Fusion 360, where I was able to extrude curves into a 3D model which I could then export as an stl file. I then 3D printed this stl file on the Zortrax 3D printer.

Software: Rhinoceros 3D, Fusion 360

Tools: Zortrax 3D Printer

Materials: gray PLA, gold spray paint

Finishing: sanding, spray painting

Final Rhinoceros 3D files and renderings

Link for Rhinoceros 3D model: https://drive.google.com/open?id=163aevgGFT9PzHObj1Yti135s1o_yaWn8

Link for stl file for 3D printing: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QK6VYgAdaeGqu0fPB3KQMgokzKuBD3Eh

Reflection

Since this print of my planter was my first print, I would make sure to set aside ample time to have 2 or 3 prints to take out any kinks in the printing. For example, if I had additional time to print more, I would have fixed the issue with four out of five of my towers not printing. 

Another change I would make is to use the NVBOTS 3D printer instead of the Zortrax 3D printer, because all of the prints on the NVBOTS printers came out flat, and did not end up curling up.