Deforestation: a RIVETING 3D Printed Game

Deforestation is a very real issue in our planet right now. The rainforests are being cut down at an unprecedented rate. However, our team understands that many of these countries that have rainforests need to cut them down in order to grow their economies. Our team wanted to address this argument and create an object which would help demonstrate the point that the rainforests need to be protected. In this instructable, you will be able to create an object which serves as a game for young children, which hopefully helps ingrain in them the necessity for a balance between growth and preservation.

This instructable will show you how to create a 3D print to help teach children about the current issue of deforestation. Some game rules are also offered to make the print more interactable.

Before You Begin: You will need: Access to a 3D printer Access to 3D design software (TinkerCad is online and free: https://tinkercad.com) Pliers/file for post-processing of pieces Paint that is suitable for plastic (optional)

Additional Teaching/Research Materials: Deforestation Time Lapse https://youtu.be/hllU9NEcJyg

Active Wild Teaching website https://www.activewild.com/what-is-deforestation-...

Children of the Earth Deforestation website https://www.activewild.com/what-is-deforestation-...

Notes: This project is quite scalable: if you wish to print more than eight game pieces to fit in the board at a time, you simply need to increase the size of the game board (explained later) and print more of the necessary pieces. Also, when printing, each game piece (and the board) must be one solid piece; they are still printed separately, however.

Step 1: Materials

The materials you will need for this project a 3D printer, 3D modeling software (in our project Tinkercad), 3D printing material, pliers and sandpaper (to clean object after printed). Paint is optional.

Step 2: Formulation of the 3D Print/Design

1. Create a TinkerCad account and follow the tutorial to understand how this particular software works.

2. Create a flat rectangular board with dimensions: length: 107mm, width: 141mm, height: 4mm. You can create a border by putting a smaller board with the “hole” setting inside the top of the original board and group them together.The length was 96 mm and the width was 130 mm for the hole used to create the border in the main board.The hole is placed 2 mm deep into the main board.

3. Highlight both the hole and the base, then select group to create the desired board. For all the pieces, find the “wedge” piece to use as a base, rotate it so that it has a flat right triangle on the top and bottom planes. We chose each base to be identical so that the placement of each piece does not force a choice upon the user; the user has freedom in their actions. The dimensions for each base are: length: 29mm, width: 45mm, height: 10mm.

4. Next, export the base as an STL file because we will be using it in the creation of each of our pieces. First, a create a new file, and call it Cow. For the cattle piece, start by importing the STL file of the base. Then, either create a cow figure yourself using the “extrusion” tool or find an “.stl” file of a cow through google, which is what our group did. Position it on top of the the wedge so that no parts of the cow protrude from the base. Create a height for the cow that seems reasonable. Our cow height was 20 mm. Highlight the cow and the base together, then press group. Link to the cow we used: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/hZ0YQXr4s7c-cow#...

5. Create a new file, and call it Building. First, import the base. For the housing building, add a rectangular prism to the top of the wedge. Make the height bigger than the width so it represents the height of a building in a city. At the top, add another rectangle to represent an AC unit. If applicable, you may add indentations to the sides of the rectangular building to create a more sophisticated building structure. Highlight all parts of the building and the wedge together, then select group.

6. Create a new file, and call it Industry. First, import the base. For the industry piece, place a rectangular box along the long side of the triangle. Place another smaller similar rectangular box on top of that, and then place 2 cylinders vertically on top equally spaced from each other to represent chimneys. Overall, our industry part of the piece is 10.3 mm tall. Highlight all parts of the piece, including the base, then select group.

7. Create a new file, and call it Rainforest. First, import the base. For the rainforest piece, place 3 small vertical boxes spread out from each other on the base; these will represent the trunks of trees. On each box, place a square pyramid to represent leaves and foliage. The height of highest tree in our project was 7 mm high. (If desired, multiple versions of this piece may be created to offer some variation in how the trees are spread out.)

8. Export each file as a “.stl” file.

Step 3: Print

1. The design and creation of the object in TinkerCad does not take long; it took an overall estimate of 30 minutes to make everything if working in a four-person group.

2. The base ratio of pieces is 8 rainforest, 4 cattle, 4 industry, 4 food. If you want to increase the game size, scale the number of pieces accordingly.

3. We printed our object in separate pieces and stl files. Each piece took around 20-25 minutes to print. The board took about 4 hours to print.

4. However, as a way to save time, you can block the same pieces into one single piece for the print, and just cut to separate after printing. This cut down our time to 1-2 hours per set.

Step 4: Incorporation of the Game Mechanic

1. Rules: You are the president of a country. You want to have a flourishing country, but you also want to preserve as much of your nearby rainforest as possible.

2. At the start of the game, all spaces on the board will be covered with 8 rainforest pieces. Players will be given objectives such as “build new housing,” or “clear area for a new farm” along with a storyline that will be created by the game host.

3. Once a rainforest piece has been taken out, it cannot be placed back, since rainforests take centuries to grow back. However, any other piece can be freely replaced.

4. The player must meet the minimum rainforest piece requirement, and 2 out of the 3 other requirements in order to move on to the next objective.