Material selection criteria in 3D Printing - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Material Selection Criteria for 3D Printing

📖 Scenario: You are working in a small workshop that uses 3D printers to create custom parts for clients. To make sure the parts work well and last long, you need to choose the right material for each project.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple checklist of material selection criteria to help decide which 3D printing material to use for different parts.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called materials with three materials and their properties

Add a variable called minimum_strength to set the strength needed for a part

Use a for loop with variables material and properties to find materials meeting the strength requirement

Add a final list called suitable_materials containing the names of materials that meet the criteria

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Choosing the right material is important in 3D printing to make parts that are strong enough and flexible enough for their use.

💼 Career

Material selection skills help engineers and designers make better products and reduce waste and failures.

1

Create the materials dictionary

Create a dictionary called materials with these exact entries: 'PLA': {'strength': 60, 'flexibility': 30}, 'ABS': {'strength': 70, 'flexibility': 50}, 'PETG': {'strength': 65, 'flexibility': 40}

3D Printing

# Create the materials dictionary with exact entries
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a dictionary with material names as keys and another dictionary for their properties.

2

Set the minimum strength requirement

Add a variable called minimum_strength and set it to 65 to represent the minimum strength needed for the part

3D Printing

materials = {
    'PLA': {'strength': 60, 'flexibility': 30},
    'ABS': {'strength': 70, 'flexibility': 50},
    'PETG': {'strength': 65, 'flexibility': 40}
}
# Set the minimum strength needed
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just create a variable and assign the number 65 to it.

3

Find materials meeting the strength requirement

Use a for loop with variables material and properties to check each material in materials.items(). Inside the loop, add an if statement to select materials where properties['strength'] is greater than or equal to minimum_strength. Create a list called selected_materials and add the names of these materials to it.

3D Printing

materials = {
    'PLA': {'strength': 60, 'flexibility': 30},
    'ABS': {'strength': 70, 'flexibility': 50},
    'PETG': {'strength': 65, 'flexibility': 40}
}
minimum_strength = 65

# Create selected_materials list and add materials meeting strength
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Start with an empty list, then loop through materials and add those that meet the strength condition.

4

Create the final suitable materials list

Add a final list called suitable_materials and set it equal to selected_materials to complete the material selection checklist.

3D Printing

materials = {
    'PLA': {'strength': 60, 'flexibility': 30},
    'ABS': {'strength': 70, 'flexibility': 50},
    'PETG': {'strength': 65, 'flexibility': 40}
}
minimum_strength = 65
selected_materials = []
for material, properties in materials.items():
    if properties['strength'] >= minimum_strength:
        selected_materials.append(material)

# Set suitable_materials equal to selected_materials
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just assign the list you created to a new variable for clarity.