A tiny swan has proven a massive winner thanks to the incredibly creative talent of Year 12 student Damla Temizsoy.
Damla was the national winner of the Make Your Marque competition, where students designed and 3D printed a mascot or emblem for their school’s EVolocity electric kart. For her efforts, she won her very own 3D printer!
Last year Damla was part of Westlake’s Motorsport Club, which designed, built and raced “Woody” – a wooden kart – in the EVolocity schools competition held in November.
“When the Make Your Marque competition was introduced last year, I was so excited to hear the prize was a 3D printer and decided to enter it and give it a shot,” says Damla.
Her intricate and clever design won the vote of the judges, taking out the competition from around New Zealand to win the prized 3D printer.
“I made a swan with pilot’s glasses,” she says. “I used a swan because it is our school mascot and a big part of the Westlake Community. The pilot’s glasses come from our Evolocity project because we based our kart on WWI planes (wooden chassis, with fabric covering). This project took roughly 2-3 hours to design, about 1 – 11/2 hours to 3D print due to the small details such as glasses. Then I painted it in our school colours of green and red.”
Judge, Dr Stephen Kavermann from The University of Auckland, said of Damla’s entry: “An excellent design and print, with a good explanation of the link to the team and the school. It was nicely presented and looked good mounted on the vehicle. Good quality and very ambitious printing.”
Damla was ecstatic to win, saying the project challenged her – in a good way! “I used TinkerCad, which is quite a restricting program, so it was hard to get some details. For example, doing the neck and glasses were quite challenging because those shapes don’t exist on TinkerCad. It was a bit of piecing together different shapes to get the look I wanted. I also wanted to include a scarf to complete the whole WWI pilot look, no matter how much I tried I couldn’t get it to look the way I wanted it to, so I decided to not go with a scarf.
Announced as winner during the National Awards Ceremony streamed through Facebook Live late last year, Damla won a Creality Ender 3D printer. “I am so happy and excited to have won such an amazing prize. I can’t wait to get started and make many weekend projects, I already have a list of projects I want to do,” she says.
It’s no surprise that this clever student is keen on a career in the science/technology/engineering fields. “I already knew I wanted to go into one of those areas, but winning a 3D printer out of all the students competing in New Zealand gave me a lot more confidence and confirmed that I am going in the right direction.”
The right direction indeed! Well done Damla from Mr Scull and everyone here at Westlake.
Damla is pictured top with her design and award, and below with her 2020 Motorsport team mates.
