Fina Project - 3D Printed Vase + Flowers

For the final project, I designed and fabricated a 3D-printed vase with 3 flowers and stems using Fusion 360 and the Library Makerspace 3D printer. There are five main designing parts for this project:

1. Vase
2. Flower Stem (x3)
3. Tulip flower head
4. Sunflower head
5. Another flower head

1. Fusion 360
2. PLA filament (Library Makerspace)
3. Acrylic Paint
4. Gloss spray
5. 3D Printer (Library Makerspace)
6. Sandpaper

I decided to 3D print a flower vase along with flowers because I wanted a decorative vase for my apartment. Since the final project required at least five parts, designing both the flowers and the stems allowed me to meet those requirements. An added benefit is that these 3D-printed flowers and stems never wilt like real ones, making them a lasting piece of decor.

I went ahead and sketched how I visualize my end product to be. I knew that I wanted my vase to have a curvature pattern and I wanted tulip, sunflower, and another flower for the end projects. Sketching process was pretty straightforward.

For the vase, I started with a sketch of multiple inscribed polygons, then I used the trim method to delete the sides of the polygons that I did not want, only keeping the outlines of the base. Then, I extruded it to a desired height, making sure there are 3 front faces. Then, I went ahead and edited form to make the varying sizes of the vase narrow, wide, and narrow. Also, with the edit form method, I also rotated the faces to get the curvature pattern that I wanted. In addition, I used the fillet method on all the curvature lines to round the edges. In addition, in order to get the bottom of the vase and the top, I sketched two 2-point rectangles and used tools such as loft join and project.

For the stem, I just drew a circle and extruded it to the same height of the vase.

For the flowers, I just sketched the flowers and did simple extrusion methods. Then, I also drew a circle in a plane underneath the flower heads and then extruded inwards to cut the heads so that later on, we can stick the stems into these flower heads.

I exported the designs from Fusion 360, sliced them, and sent them to the 3D printing queue from Library Makerspace. I oriented the print flat on its base to minimize supports and ensure a clean surface finish. The only designs I needed support for were the flower heads, due to the indented circular parts where the stems would go in later on. Other than that, I sent my form to the queue for it to be printed.

The printing process went smoothly! In total, the 3D printing process took about 16 hours approximately for all the parts.

I encountered a problem where the stems were a bit bigger than the holes of the flower heads, and they would not fit together. Therefore, I started sanding down the top part of the stems until I was able to fit these stems in the flower heads. I think this issue might have come from the inaccuracy of my lack of proper parameterization and the exporting of files to print. After sanding and assembling the stems and flower heads together, I painted the stems green and the flower heads with colors according to my liking and what I initially visualized. After painting them, I went ahead and sprayed a gloss finish on them to make the paint last longer. In addition, I cut blue papers and crumbled them and put them inside of the vase to mimic "water" in the vase.

Here's my finished vase and flowers! I am not quite happy with how big my stems are, but I do blame myself for not taking into consideration the parameters accurately and thoroughly. Other than that, I do see myself reusing the vase for real flowers! As for the flowers and the stem, I think they look cute, kind of reminding me of childhood toys, perhaps I will give these to my niece and nephew!