May the Yule be with you...

Not so long ago, In a Design Office far, far away…

It will soon be that time of year…or if you are a keen viewer of the television channels and frequent the supermarkets, you would be fooled into thinking Christmas officially started at the end of October. Many of us, if you are as old as I, remember Santa visiting the school, carrying his huge sack of presents, dutifully dished out to the excited children. I was always keen to see if I got the same little plastic submarine and deep sea diver kit as last year (I think I got it every year).

I loved Christmas time back then, making the decorations for the classroom, the little festive ornaments to take home, that invariably included a pine cone and holly leaves drenched in red glitter. The excitement of wondering what Santa would bring...the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Specials.

Happy irreplaceable days, memories to cherish forever. Now, I was thinking, recalling those glitter plastered pine cones and holly leaf constructions of my youth, what would the children of today, with all the computer tech readily available, be able to knock up using software like Designspark Mechanical the new add-on software and a 3D printer?

A gentle bit of Googling revealed it’s indeed a growing Genre, even the President of the USA, living in his Whitehouse, ran a competition in 2014 for 3D printed Christmas decoration designs to be submitted, the winners had their creations on display in that very building, excellent!

Even more exciting than Christmas (well maybe not), is the release of that new Sci-fi movie, you know the one, Star Wars, in December 2015! So why not, I thought, combine Christmas and Sci-fi and design a bang on topic decoration! Here we have a Xmas Pie Fighter!

I've shared this on Thingiverse - Download the STL File!

This little Xmas Pie Fighter went through a few changes, as I grasped the mantel of concept improvement, tweaking the thickness of the snowflake wings to the body a few mm as a strengthening method, as an earlier design was a tiny bit flimsy. Using the DesignSpark Mechanical software with the optional Drawing and Exchange add-ons was a breeze, and far more forgiving than my past experiences using other 3D design platforms.

The list of possible designs is endless along with the fun you could be having with your children! I’m sure they will be as excited as I was when the first Star Wars movie came out way back in 1977. And using a 3D printer and Designspark Mechanical software to create a festive Yoda to me sounds like great fun, a new take on festive decorations. (Saying that I would still like the holly/pine cone combo as well please, and you could always cover Yoda in glitter anyway?)

Happy Christmas!

Related Christmas Posts - The 12 Hacks of Christmas