An injection molded toy created from aluminum molds my team and I designed and produced
Inspired by a local elementary student's drawing, the Cat Donut injection molded toy was born. My design team first worked digitally: designing the part for injection molding, modeling the parts and their corresponding molds, and using Siemens NX CAM to create their manufacturing program.
We then transitioned to executing our design: programming a CNC mill to create our aluminum molds and operating the injection molding machine to bring the Cat Donut to life.
Northwestern University // Computer Integrated Manufacturing Course
January 2020 – March 2020
Siemens NX Manufacturing (CAM) / CNC programming / Injection Molding
Takeaways.
This was a real roll-up-your-sleeves-and-grind-it-out kind of project, as we were learning a brand new software in Siemens NX CAM to create the manufacturing program for our molds. I used it as an opportunity to strengthen my ability to tackle new problems and break down complex tasks.
Although we weren't able to meet them in-person, due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, hearing about the excitement of the local students who saw their drawings come to life through our class' design processes was amazing, and a tangible reminder of the positive effect consumer product design can have on others.
If you are interested in learning more about our design process, feel free to explore the project details below!
We designed the Cat Donut toy based on a drawing from a local elementary student.
My team and I worked through different methods of creating our toy, and settled on creating two halves–one half of the donut with ears and the other half with frosting with sprinkles.
In this design, we focused on designing for injection molding, making sure to keep the wall thickness consistent throughout the parts and having all machinable features.
I led the design and production of molds for one half of our toy.
1. I utilized Siemens NX to model molds from the initial part models (an example of a core and cavity shown).
2. In Siemens NX CAM, I produced g-code for the manufacturing of each half with a CNC mill, iterating through program variations as I encountered new obstacles.
3. My team and I produced the molds with a HAAS CNC mill.
We utilized the aluminum molds to bring the Cat Donut to life through injection molding.
Once we manufactured our molds, we worked through different injection molding variables – adjusting the temperature and injection time/pressure – until optimizing our process to create our final Cat Donut toy.
You can see a couple examples of failed attempts and our final product in the provided images.
