By Eunice Soriano
In a unique collaboration between Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and visitor attraction Little Canada, students had the opportunity to create Canada’s West Coast landscape—but on a much smaller scale.
Throughout the Fall 2023 semester, students of the GCM 750 3D printing course worked with cutting edge technology to print miniature models for Little West Coast.
Little Canada, located in The Tenor on Yonge and Dundas Square, is a tourist destination of an ever-growing miniature exhibit of Canada, a popular tourist destination.
Lee Eldrige, graphic communications management and creative industries lecturer, teaches TMU’s 3D printing course integrating in-class theory with real-world creative experience. His students had the unique opportunity to create sculptures that would embody Canada’s west-coast for Little Canada’s latest exhibit, Little West Coast. The display showcases Vancouver landmarks such as the Japanese Canadian War Memorial in Stanley Park and everyday fixtures like patio umbrellas and fire hydrants.
With no prerequisites required to enroll, Eldrige’s class welcomes students from a variety of programs and creative backgrounds each year who are interested in learning about 3D printing.
Some students join the class to understand the mechanical process of 3D printing, whereas others embrace the creative freedom by crafting models that fit their artistic style.
“3D printing is not my specialty. I sort of took this course on a whim, just to learn something new, but I loved it,” said Megan Quan, a fourth-year creative industries student.
With a diverse group of students, Elridge always starts the course at square one: the fundamentals, as many of the students don’t come from a background in design or 3D printing.
“Just stumbling upon your own creation, it definitely made all of the hours I put into it worth it”
“When we start on day one, I always tell the students, ‘I don’t expect you to know anything about 3D printing. We’re going to assume that you’ve never touched a 3D printer or done any 3D modeling before,’” Elridge said.
Quan, with minimal knowledge on 3D printing when she started, walked away on the last day of the course with a valuable new skill.
While tourists stroll through the exhibit’s miniature Stanley Park, they can see Quan’s ornate design of the Japanese Canadian War Memorial—a monument that took a lot of molding and close attention to detail.
The first part of the process was the ideation and mapping the design, which posed some challenges for Quan. She said she struggled to find measurements on the internet and took things into her own hands, drawing out the details herself and calculating the size of the Memorial to match the miniature proportions.
From there, Quan took her work to a 3D design and modeling software that the students use to prepare their replicas for the printing process.
“We use this program called Autodesk Fusion 360 to map out what our sculpture or object would look like if it were printed,” said Quan.
The students’ models were printed at Little Canada, using state-of-the-art 3D stereolithography printers to bring their work to fruition.
Once printed, the Little Canada details team painted and hand-weathered them to replicate the original landmarks.
Jessica Garcia, Little Canada’s leader of destinations, said the time spent painting and fine-tuning the models varies depending on their size.
“Something small, like the fire hydrants, could take five minutes for the painting process. For something like the Japanese war memorial—because that’s a little bit more substantial and has a little bit more weathering and age to it—could take about eight hours,” Garcia said.
According to Elridge, over 20,000 hours of labour went into making Little West Coast a reality.
“It’s important to start documenting our landscapes and our history now, so future generations can look back”
On Oct. 17, 2024, Quan and some of her fellow classmates had the opportunity to see their work displayed at the exhibit’s private opening.
She described the showcase as a rewarding experience as she laid eyes on her finished creation for the first time.
“It was cool to see [Little West Coast] miniaturized,” Quan said. “Just stumbling upon your own creation, it definitely made all of the hours I put into it worth it.”
Eldrige said these important moments are why he integrates hands-on experiential learning into the course.
“It’s nice to come up with an idea, design it in the computer lab, bring it to a workspace like that and actually make it real,” he said.
Elridge explained that when his students began to load their files into the 3D printing machine, everything started to click together—turning the theory taught in lecture into a miniature reality.
However, like most projects, this tall task came with its challenges. Many students had to reprint their models due to mechanical or modeling errors, but Elridge believed that’s just part of the learning process.
“I would say probably 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the students have to go reprint and often those are the best learning experiences for them, because when everything goes smoothly, you can forget about all the little details,” said Elridge.
With Little West Coast being a great hit among tourists, Little Canada’s team is already anticipating their next collaboration with Elridge and his students.
“Hopefully we can do it again in the future because it was very successful. We love to give younger artists the opportunity to do some work for us and get their work displayed in a tourist attraction,” Garcia said.
Since working on the display, the TMU students who participated in creating the exhibit recognized their duty to preserve the Canadian landscape through their creativity.
“It’s important to start documenting our landscapes and our history now, so future generations can look back and see that this is what Canada used to look like,” said Quan.
Elridge took his young daughter to Little Canada for her first time and said that letting her explore the miniature exhibits elevated the tourism experience in a unique way.
“We have not been able to do nearly as much travel in the country as I would like. But taking [my daughter] to Little Canada and letting her see a representation of these very diverse and interesting areas and buildings and monuments, she’s now very excited about seeing them in real life,” he said.
After the experience, Quan hopes this won’t be the last time she gets to 3D print. “If I ever had the opportunity to do something like this, like 3D printing related or just getting my work out there for people to see, I would definitely take that opportunity,” she said.
Leave a Reply