Creative Trophy and Medal Design

Design a creative trophy for AYDN volunteer award. 

AYDN is a non-profit organization where many middle school and high school students, including me, volunteer.

I want to design a fun trophy that does not merely etch AYDN letters on the body of the trophy, Instead, AYDN letters will be an integral part of the 3D structure of the trophy. Several different designs had been created, with different arrangements of the 3D letters. For example, in the early version of the design, all four letters are of the same size and dimension, i.e. each is a cube. The final design places an enlarged letter Y right in the middle, resembling a tree shape to symbolize the growth of the youth. 

As a side project, I apply the similar concept to design a medal for their soccer club. The four letters of AYDN nicely form a soccer player image.

• CAD: Fusion 360 
• 3D Printer: Creality Sermon D1
• Filament: PLA Silk 1.75mm, copper

To brainstorm and conceptualize the 3D model, I made a paper sketch model first.

I used Fusion 360 as the CAD tool. The design history is captured in the video. Attached is the STL file.

Initial prints ran into build plate adhesion issues. Methods to improve adhesion include

• selecting raft build plate adhesion type
• increasing build plate and printing temperature
• decreasing initial layer printing speed

Major slicer setting include the following

• layer height = 0.12 mm (high quality)
• wall thickness = 1.2 mm
• infill density = 10.0 % (10% should be adequate for such non-functional objects)
• infill pattern = lines
• infill line thickness = 0.06 mm
• printing temperature = 210.0 C
• build plate temperature = 70 C (higher temperature improve adhesion)
• print speed = 45.0 mm/s
• initial layer speed = 15.0 mm/s (slower speed for initial layers improve adhesion)
• build plate adhesion type = raft  (more plate adhesion than brim)

Full size build require approximately 24-hr printing time. Test run with a half size build first, which requires 5.5-hr printing time. The half-size, full-size, and the early failed prints are shown in the figure.