Iron Ant: the First Crossover (Crochet and 3D Printing).

Hi everybody!

This is a very special project to me and I wanted to share it with you because I think it has a lot of potential in different areas.

I am a Theory of knowledge teacher for the IB program in a school here in Colombia. So I am always encouraging my students to find those areas where knowledge cross but nobody has ever stood a foot on them.

This project has the same flavor. My wife just recently started with crochet and I have a few year working with 3D printing. So one day, checking instructables I saw a post for how to make a crochet ant: https://www.instructables.com/Simple-Crochet-Ant/ and I was hooked. (Please visit this instructable if you like crochet, its well explained and the final product is awesome. I was able to easily follow the procedure and the results I wanted). All the credits for my inspiration to https://www.instructables.com/member/zoerainbows/.

Continuing with the story, something exploded in my head, what if we mix crochet and 3D printing. My mind raged for two continuous days and I finally decided to ask my wife a crochet lesson.

This project has two objectives:

1) Take crochet to a new level, along with its creativity.

2) Connect groups of people that are not that need to be connected in our time (girls and STEM, and Classic mothers with current kids).

I would like to know if you think the same about this project too. I would love feedback.

I also need you to know the following:

1) Since this is a draft, I wont get in too much details. If you like this project, please let me know and next one would be as detailed as I can do it.

2) The materials are the ones that I had in hand, so they may not be the optimum ones for the job, but they work just fine.

So with everything clear lets move to the instructable, enjoy!

- Everything you need to crochet (please visit the post of zoerainbows).

- Wires (enough to make a couple of connections for 3 LEDs).

- Any transparent PLA (with a 3D printer). https://shop.fillamentum.com/products/pla-extrafil...

- 3 LED´s (any color you want or have available).

- 3 1K Ohms resistors.

- Paint (all that you need to do it).

- Electrical tape

- Switch

- Superglue (or UHU glue, or epoxy glue).

- A small log or branch.

- Drill

- A sharp knife or razor blade.

- Sand paper.

- A 9V jack female connector and the proper charger.

I just decided which part would be crochet and which other would be 3D printed. At the end I imagined the head, two legs, one arm and the abdomen. The chest, one arm and the other two legs would be 3D printed. taking advantage of the Crystal PLA, I could use LEDs to make it shine (Ironman style).

So please follow Zoerainbows and her Instructables to crochet everything:

https://www.instructables.com/Simple-Crochet-Ant/

Next, I used Tinkecad to design the 3D parts. I find Tinkercad a very useful tool and robust enough to create powerfull designs.

I just used every option available to create the chest, the legs and the antenna. I leave you guys here the public design for you to check it:

https://www.tinkercad.com/things/f5Ewi5P2kX1.

The most important part here is that I made them hollow to be able to put an LED inside. Since the crystal PLA is transparent it will glow really nice. This is very cool for kids.

I used connectors from the connectors library in Tinkercad to give the arm a bit of mobility. This parts can be easily added to any project and they come with the right dimensions to fit effectively one with the other.

If you want me to explain the design process in a detail manner, please leave a comment below.

First sand everything and be sure that all parts fit together

I used white as primer. Then aplied a second coat of light gray. Finally, I used dark gray and black to make the "movable parts" look like they are worn out due to the Ant´s hardwork.

The painting was very basic, and there are ways to do this better. But as I said, this is just a draft. If this happen to be liked, I will improve this process.

Oh! I used dark purple for the shoulder (remember, this project is mainly for girls).

Be careful to leave the parts that you want shine free of paint (both in the inside and the outside).

Using a soldering machine, I added wire to the resistors and LEDs. Then covered the LEDs with electrical tape on their sides to focus the light to the front. If you don´t do this, the light will escape through any small space in that is not painted properly.

You can use the super glue to attach the heart to the LED that goes in the chest plate.

Every part made with crochet, ends up with a string. We will take advantage of that to tie and fix the parts together.

For the antenna, you just have to put the LED inside and, using the crochet hook pass the wires through the head of the ant. This way the string and the LED wires will come out of the head at the same point. The wires will help you fix the 3D printed part to the crochet head. Last but not least, use the 3D printed cap to cover the antenna.

First I grouped the head with the two front legs, for the front part of the chest plate. I tied the three strings together firmly leaving enough cord for the parts to fit tightly in their place, after that I super glued the heart and used a little drop of the same adhesive to fix the head and the legs. This will make the assembly of the two halves easier.

For the back part of the chest, I grouped the abdomen and the arm. Super glued the LED inside the two pieces of the arm and glued the wires together to fix them to the chest.

With all the parts fixed and glued, we just have to super glue the two parts of the chest together. I tied all the wires using electrical tape. Please look at the pictures.

Connect all the negatives wires together, and all the positives together. This will make a parallel circuit.

Now its time to test the LEDs. Use a power source or a 9V battery to test the LEDs connections. Now is the correct time to fix any connection problem.

If everything works ok we can move to the last part.

I want it to give it a rugged look to the ant, since it is a worker ant, the paint in the armor looks worn out and the log should be as natural as it possibly can. I didn´t wanted to treat it, or sand it, or any other process, just what nature offered.

I went for a walk and found prospects, but I ended up choosing the one you see in the picture. With a saw I cut the excess to leave it proportional to the size of the ant.

Then I used a drill to make a hole big enough to pass the wires through, in the position I wanted for the ant.

Then used a razor blade to carve a square hole for the switch and another square hole for the jack connection.

Finally, I connected everything together using electrical tape. Be sure to connect the switch properly, you just have to break one of the wires (negative or positive) and install the switch in the middle.

I really hope to receive as much feedback as I possible can from you.

If this project gets a lot of attention, I will continue with some projects that involves these two techniques.

Thank you.