<p>Published on <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/3d-print-prototyping-process-blog-996949069b61?source=rss----eb297ea1161a---4">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Nicole McGovern </p>
<p>This is a prototype for a simple bottle opener created with a 3D printer. The goal was to develop my ability to create 3D models for prototyping physical objects at medium fidelity.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*y1V_sBFKZ3BfJysI0fUlmQ.jpeg"></p>
<h3>Requirements</h3>
<ul>
<li>Design something that would be useful in your everyday life.</li>
<li>Must use all 3 of the following primitive operations: extrude, revolution, boolean.</li>
</ul>
<h3>The Idea</h3>
<p>When I first started thinking about this assignment, I tried to think of simple items I needed around my house that I didn’t have. I first landed on a spoon rest, and started looking up interesting designs and researching 3D printing for the kitchen. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that this spoon rest probably wouldn’t stay sanitary for long, so I decided to switch to a new direction.</p>
<p>Keeping ideas to things commonly found in the kitchen, I thought it might be fun to create a keychain bottle opener. Without putting too much more thought into it, I got going with some quick rough sketches.</p>
<h3>Sketching</h3>
<p>I sketched this out quickly to get an idea of the shape I wanted to build, but I left most of the work for the computer this time.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*uHWNRxxYxwjpul7K947kEA.jpeg"><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*wZ54UuLIJPfheGfx2tmCsg.jpeg"></p>
<h3>Research</h3>
<p>Before I could really get going, I needed to figure out what the right dimensions were for typical bottle openers. After searching around a bit, I found a simple 3D printed bottle opener from Thingiverse. I downloaded this file and used this shape to build my design off of.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Xoggyk5dNdfKworjAyP-pw.png">Bottle opener from Thingiverse by xdmlaser</p>
<h3>Building in Rhino</h3>
<p>After importing this shape into Rhino, I started customizing to make it my own. I created a keychain hole through revolving, extruding, and then using a boolean subtract operation to create the the hole. I fiddled around with adding text to the side surface.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*lqhatSaA7DLCDp-N_fyOOQ.png">My prototype in Rhino</p>
<h3>Moving to Makerbot</h3>
<p>After finalizing my design in Rhino, I saved as an object file and moved into the Makerbot software. Here, I could save my file as a .STL and send it to the Makerbot 3D printer!</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Ly9fp03aJ5wbKOJL7uZL7g.png">Prototype in Makerbot</p>
<p>After sending off my design, I had about 40 minutes to wait for my prototype.</p>
<p><iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fplayer.vimeo.com%2Fvideo%2F254218899&amp;dntp=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F254218899&#038;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.vimeocdn.com%2Fvideo%2F681309844_960.jpg&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=vimeo" width="1080" height="1920" frameborder="0"><a href="https://medium.com/media/d741e8944dab0541bfed6cd2efd213cc/href">https://medium.com/media/d741e8944dab0541bfed6cd2efd213cc/href</a></iframe></p>
<h3>Final Product</h3>
<p>After getting my design out of the makerbot and breaking away the base, my prototype was complete!</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*y1V_sBFKZ3BfJysI0fUlmQ.jpeg"></p>
<p>I was happy with how everything looked, and was surprised by how well the text came out. However, the makerbot printed my design with supports inside as opposed to a completely solid core. This made the prototype seem a little weaker than I intended. So the next step was to see if it worked!</p>
<h3>Does it work?!</h3>
<p>Let’s see… here’s an extremely anticlimactic video and one attempt at opening a bottle with my bottle opener.</p>
<p><iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fplayer.vimeo.com%2Fvideo%2F254219750&amp;dntp=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F254219750&#038;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.vimeocdn.com%2Fvideo%2F681310966_960.jpg&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=vimeo" width="1080" height="1920" frameborder="0"><a href="https://medium.com/media/e16bc998ad722821f0a6d05d4354f54d/href">https://medium.com/media/e16bc998ad722821f0a6d05d4354f54d/href</a></iframe></p>
<p>In the portion of this attempt that I wasn’t filming, <strong>we got the bottle open!</strong></p>
<p>Yay! It worked! Barely…</p>
<p>As I was trying to open the bottle, I could feel the bottle opener bending in my hand. It seemed extremely fragile. So I decided to test it again see if it could take more than one use.</p>
<h4>Can it handle a second use? Nope!</h4>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*aZ0QNEVRPweKD8LEMY5uEQ.jpeg"></p>
<p>Wow, what a roller coaster. I was sad, but my friends and I mourned the bottle opener and I very maturely took this as a learning experience.</p>
<h3>Takeaways</h3>
<p>I had fun with this assignment, and left with a few different takeaways.</p>
<ol>
<li>3D printing is awesome for creating extremely accurate representations of what you want your final design to look like.</li>
<li>3D printing is not so awesome for testing prototypes that are meant to be made from specific materials (or something stronger than the plastic filament Makerbot 3D printers take.)</li>
<li>There’s a learning curve involved with using 3D printing software, but it isn’t too painful to pick up.</li>
<li>3D printing is a fun way to get creative and build something really cool. If you have access to this equipment, you should take advantage of it!</li>
</ol>
<p><iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fupscri.be%2Ff51076%3Fas_embed%3Dtrue&amp;dntp=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fupscri.be%2Ff51076%2F&#038;image=https%3A%2F%2Fe.enpose.co%2F%3Fkey%3DdRXnS9Gplk%26w%3D700%26h%3D425%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fupscri.be%252Ff51076%252F%253Fenpose&amp;key=d04bfffea46d4aeda930ec88cc64b87c&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=upscri" width="800" height="400" frameborder="0"><a href="https://medium.com/media/b85dfbb5286d8a25cf2e754b9462cf45/href">https://medium.com/media/b85dfbb5286d8a25cf2e754b9462cf45/href</a></iframe><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=996949069b61" width="1" height="1" alt="stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSou"></p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/3d-print-prototyping-process-blog-996949069b61">3D Print Prototyping Process Blog: Bottle Opener</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io">Prototypr</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


3D Print Prototyping Process Blog: Bottle Opener

Top Stories