My Fountain Design

For this project, I used TinkerCAD to create a fountain. It has been a while since I have used TinkerCAD so I started by exploring some learning projects. In fact, the inspiration for this project was the learning project: Build a Fountain Using the Align Tool. While I was a bit disappointed in the simplicity of the tutorial, all the parts were there and all you need to do was use the align tool, I did gain a better understanding of the align tool. I also completed the Build a Roman Dome with Columns learning project. This one was a bit confusing at times, but I was able to complete it by looking at the pictures and figuring out my own way to do something when I did not understand the steps in the directions.

My Process

For my fountain, the first thing I focused on was the bowl, then I created the flower decoration that would be on the side of the bowl. I searched the web for tutorials on how to make flowers in TinkerCAD because I was struggling how to make a petal. I found a short video that was very useful: I learned how to make petals, got better at rotation & duplication, and learned how to make the thin streams I used for water. I actually used the technique from the tutorial on making flower stems. Then I drilled a hole through one of the flowers so I could put a pipe in it. Finally I duplicated the bowl and worked on the base part.

Over all, I am quite pleased with my design. It includes 3 identical bowls sitting at different heights on a base of 3 attached columns. It has flowers at the 4 compass points on the outside of each bowl. I used radial symmetry in the design of the flower decoration and the placement of the flower decoration on the bowls. I have included a close up of the flower decoration so you can see the radial symmetry (symmetry around a point). Unfortunately, TinkerCAD seems to render it with extra lines in between the petals. I think if I were to do it again, I would make every other petal a little bit (0.1mm?) higher than the one on either side. This might provide a little bit better definition in the petals.

Specific info on how I created certain parts.

Let me know if you would like me to add pictures to these descriptions (or create a short vid) and be specific about which one.

Bowl:

1. I started with a dome and flipped it over.
2. Then I used a cube (hole) to cut off the bottom of the bowl.
3. Finally, I duplicated the bowl and made the duplicate a bit (1mm) smaller. I made it a hole and grouped it with the original which hollowed it out.

Flower:

1. A circle became an oval and was used to create 1 petal.
2. One petal was duplicated into 2. The second was placed at the end of the first.
3. Both petals were selected, then duplicated, then rotated (22.5°).
   This sets up a duplication pattern that is automatically repeated each time you press duplicate.
4. The duplication + rotation was repeated to create the 16 petals. A different initial rotation would result in a different number of petals. This was a similar technique to duplicating the columns on the Roman Dome tutorial (linked above)

Water flowing out the pipe:

1. Starting with the squiggle tool, i created the curved shape.
2. I flattened it to a similar looking height as the width.
3. Then I rotated it.
4. I finished by carefully placing and resizing (with a very low snap to grid setting) the squiggle so that it looked like water coming out the pipe.