3D Printed Conic Sections

Hi, my name is Josh Plumley and I am currently a sophomore at Mentor High School. I made 3 cones separated in a way that forms 3 of the conic sections. Horizontally is a circle, diagonally is an ellipse, and vertically is a parabola. This allows for those teaching about conic sections to grant learners a better and more physical visual for them to understand what conic sections are and how they're formed. I gave these to my math teacher, and she expressed how helpful they would be for future teaching.

Nothing more than 3D Printing Filament.

The first step is to make the cones. To do this, I sketched a circle. Then, I extruded it into a cylinder to the desired cone height. Finally, I chamfered it from the center of the top to the perimeter of the circle, forming a cone. Then, I used the rectangular pattern tool to create 3 of them in total.

In order to divide the cones, I created construction lines through each cone in a different way to crate each conic section. I then used these construction lines to create planes which I could use the split body tool with in order to sperate the cones correctly. I then moved the new parts aside and it was ready to be printed.