Dual Letter Blocks Nameplate

This is a print that spells out different words when viewed from different directions. It was made for EECS 245 Professor Suraj Rampure, thus, it reads "Suraj" from one angle and "Eecs245" from the other. It is also a modular print, so the base and letters can be printed separately.

Before this project, I had used 3D printers before but had never used Prusa 3D printers or the PrusaSlicer software. The Shapiro Design Lab staff were immensely helpful, selecting the appropriate settings to ensure a successful print.

I designed this model in Fusion360, and it can be found here. That's the specific model for my words, but it's generally pretty easy to make a model for any words. First, you can create a sketch with the words you want, and individually extrude each letter to the width of whichever letter it overlaps with. Then overlay the letters. Finally, create another sketch for the negative of the letter for each perspective, and extrude that through the letter to remove any content introduced by the letter of the other perspective.

I learned that perspective-based models aren't very difficult to make in Fusion360, and the software provides tools like curve fit that can make work less manual.

When viewed from the other angle, the print reads "Suraj", the name of the EECS 245 instructor.

A 3D printed lime green name plate on a white table. The name plate shows different words based on how you're looking at it - this side shows "Suraj".

The other side of the plate - Prof. Suraj teaches EECS 245.

This print is modular (originally so that I could print in different colors, but I didn't end up doing that)

A 3D printed lime green baseplate and 3d standing letters/numbers laying down on a black table. The standing letters show different words, depending on how you look at them - from this angle, it reads "EECS 245".

The full plate, laid out in parts - the base plate and the free-standing letters.