Slugmania

I am writing today about something that’s become a bit of a fun fad in my 3D printing classes.

One of the first 3D printing assignments that I have kids do is called “Printing Something From the Internet”, where students find a premade STL file online and print it. It’s an introductory activity to get them some experience with prepping and printing files. They can print anything they can find, so long as it’s school appropriate. So far, I’ve seen Baby Yodas, Bernie Sanders with his infamous mittens, functioning whistles, and more.

However, one student (at this point, I don’t even remember who) printed something for this assignment that really took the cake: one of these adorable little slugs!

What’s special about it is that the designer used what are called “articulated joints” (basically, a pivot/hinge) to connect each section. That means that the slug is able to bend up and down and move from side to side. It printed as one piece, despite having multiple moving parts. Most 3D printed parts are one fixed “block”, so this design is quite a cool novelty!

Since finding out about the slug, several students and I have run with it, printing longer versions, scaled up versions, and multicolor versions.

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The feedback loop that this has caused has been quite funny- a student prints a slug, another student (quite often from another section or cohort) sees the slug when it’s finished, thinks it’s neat and decides to print one of their own, then another student comes along and notices that new slug on the buildplate when it’s done, and thus the cycle repeats itself.

As the slugs keep popping up, I’m thinking that there is good potential here for a Robotics fundraiser, where the whole team could take over the 3D printing lab for a week, churn out an army of cute slugs of varying colors and styles, and sell them at next year’s Ipswich Illuminated event. What do you think?

You can find the original slug here and the longer slugs here if you’d like to print one yourself. Thanks for reading!