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Your moment to shine

This is what the whole week has been building toward. Today you finish your capstone project - a 3D print you designed or customized yourself - and get it ready to present. You now have every skill you need: assembly, leveling, slicing, and design. Time to put them together.
A concept turning into a finished 3D-printed project

Turn your idea into a finished, printed object

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Finish strong

Finalize your design

Make your last edits in Tinkercad. Double-check dimensions, make sure nothing floats, and confirm the model fits your build plate (220 x 220 mm).

Slice with the right settings

In Cura, choose settings that match your goal - thin layers for detail, more infill for strength, supports only where you truly need them.

Print it

Send it to your Ender 3 and watch the first layer. If a print failed earlier in the week, apply what you learned and try again.

Post-process (optional)

Remove supports, sand rough edges, glue multiple parts, or paint it - safely and with supervision.
Diagram of post-processing steps: support removal, sanding, gluing, and painting

Post-processing steps that take a print from raw to finished

Prepare your presentation

Get ready to explain what it is, why you chose it, how you made it, and what problems you solved.

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Your presentation checklist

Remember the four things every presentation should cover:
Diagram of the four-part capstone presentation structure

A strong capstone presentation covers all four parts

What it is

Describe your print and what it does.

Why you chose it

What made this project interesting to you?

How you made it

Walk through design, slicing, and printing.

Problems and fixes

What went wrong, and how did you solve it? (Worth real points!)

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Judging reminder

Projects are scored out of 100 base points plus bonuses. You do not need a perfect print to score well - creativity, effort, and honest problem-solving matter most.
A print that failed but taught you something can still score highly. Explain what happened and how you responded - that resilience is exactly what we are looking for.
Be proud of what you made. A week ago this was a box of aluminum bars and screws. Now you built the machine, learned to design, and printed something that came out of your own imagination.
Your capstone is printed (or you have a great story about what you learned), post-processed if you chose to, and you are ready to present it to the class.