I teach a weekly, small class of dyslexic kids at my son’s school about design thinking. The aim is to encourage them to think big and realise that even though they may not excel at school they can still imagine and then create amazing things – it is super rewarding for us all!
This summer the kids wanted to create bee feeders to sustain our local bee population to help to maintain the general ecosystem where we live in New Zealand.
We wanted this design to be as friendly to the environment as we could given we were aiming to help Bees so my son and I came up with a design that uses an old PET bottle as the source of water – a bee refuelling station to help them get back to their hives without getting too thirsty!
It is designed to keep the feeding tray full but to always make sure that there is plenty of space for the bees to land and drink from without drowning or getting stuck. We love the fact that it looks like a honeycomb and we designed it to be printed in purple PETG as this is a colour that is very visible and attractive to bees. Plus PETG is better suited to hot summer days.
Note if you use a large PET bottle you may want to add a couple of dabs of CA glue or Gloop etc to keep the bottle holder from getting pulled out of the grid. We used a small bottle and the friction fit worked fine for us.
Also we have now added a version with a smaller base and landing grid so that it can be printed on beds that are able to accommodate at least 176mm x 153mm.
You will want to make sure the grid is printed upside down with the top surface on the bed- that way you won’t need support and will get a nice clean finish
We really hope you print one for the bees where you live!
Credits:
NicG
Download 3D models
| File | File size |
|---|---|
awesome-bee-feeder-print_files
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5 MB |
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awesome-bee-feeder-model_files
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1 MB |