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Prototyping effectively takes patience, to keep track of changes and measure how effective the changes are. I didn't experiment much with other settings (such as layer height, which I kept at 0.1mm) but I did compare the effectiveness of printing with a raft, skirt or brim. Rafts resulted in an inconsistent surface on the face of the tiles, and brims were difficult to trim effectively so I just used a skirt to expose any issues with the filament flow before starting on the main models.

I prototyped with the penguins more than the tiles, to get a feel on how large the tokens should be compared to the tiles and how easy they were for players to pick up and put down. This also exposed an issue with a weakness in the penguin's flippers, which I resolved by fusing them to the penguin's torso. Another issue is picking the right amount of support for the penguin's bill. Unfortunately I haven't resolved this one yet, leading to the tip of the bill snapping off along with the supports. Interestingly, this happens with some plastics but not others. In the future, I will round off the bill to give it better cohesion to the penguin model.

Find out more about Trout Bout:

• Trout Bout: Design
• Trout Bout: Printing

This article is part of the 3D Printing set.

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