Yellow Topo Map White Board Cover

A white board cover is exactly what it sounds like; but the cover has a fun decorative design on the cover of it. The design on top of this white board is a simple Topo map that I found off the web and then 3D modeled into a cover. The cover can be used to hide your work that's on the white board or to cover any large todo lists you have on the white board. When closed, the white boards turns into a functional piece of art and brings more color to the room. The white board can obviously house your todo list, plans, or even drawings.

This project is yellow and should be placed in the yellow category.😁

1. 14" by 14" white board
2. Foam board
3. hot glue
4. 3D printed topo map
5. yellow spray paint

Tools

1. box knife
2. 3D printer
3. hot glue gun
4. laptop

The 3D model of the Topo map is below ⬇️

When planing for this project I wanted to look for a semi-easy build that would improve my 3D modeling skills and be functional. instead of going out into the world to look for an idea I looked at chatgpt an AI that gave me many promising ideas but nothing great or unique; until it gave me an idea for a functional art piece that doubles as a whiteboard. Some of the ideas I came up with include a grid filled with triangles, a Topo map, or some ocean waves. The best design that stuck out to me was the Topo map because of its nice dynamic design. I also figured out how much this project would cost me by what item I wanted, the quantity, and by researching prices near me.

First cut your foam board so that it is 14" by 17". Next cut the slots that will form the hinge of the white board cover and do this so that the foam board raps around the left edge of the white board. The pictures above shows what the hinge rows should look like.

When 3D modeling this Topo map, I started by looking on the web for a simple yet dynamic looking Topo map. Next I used the downloaded image to trace the outline of my project. Using this outline I extruded each part a tenth of an inch away from each other. The result was a clean sharp cornered design from which I used to 3D print it. This Topo map is not a topography of any portion of land but does show great features of what a Topo map might look like.

At the start of the "pull it out of the computer" part of the project I had to cut my model into four equal parts, each one being a 7" by 7" square because my 3D printer can only 3D print up to I think 9" long and wide. Each part taking roughly about six to seven hours to print, totaling around a little over a full day of printing. To stop the print from sliding around, I used a glue stick to make a more sticky surface for the plastic to stick to the print bed. This made a great first layer. When 3D printing I found that playing around with the infill settings best lowers the print time.

First spray paint the 3D printed parts with the yellow spray paint of your chose or any color with as many coats of paint as you like. For this project I did one coat of paint, as it made a more roughed up and non perfect look to it

Next I waited for the spray paint to dry and then used the hot glue to attach each 3D printed tile onto the foam cover. With this the project was finished and all that remained was to attach it to the wall using the included wall mounting brackets.

This project was a fun one and allowed me to use more features with in fusion 360 like the canvas that was used to trace out the raised Topo map sections. It also let me expand into functional art a type of art that has a function but still looks good. I also got to use AI when creating this project for idea development and further. This white board will also help me in my day to day tasks while adding to my maker space for me to create further and with more inspiration.