This week’s selection is the wild Fidget Star by Brooklyn-based Laura Taalman.
The amazing design by Taalman, who goes by the online handle of “mathgrrl”, is a fully articulated box that can be 3D printed in a single, assembled form.
The Fidget Star is actually what’s called a “Yoshimoto Cube”, designed by Naoki Yoshimoto in 1971. From Wikipedia:
The Yoshimoto Cube is a polyhedral mechanical puzzle toy invented[1] in 1971 by Naoki Yoshimoto, who discovered that two stellated rhombic dodecahedra could be pieced together into a cube when he was finding different ways he could split a cube equally in half.
Still images do not do this design justice. You must see it in fully articulated action to appreciate the design. Here is a video of a colored version of the same design made by Mosaic Manufacturing to demonstrate the 3D printing color capabilities of their product:
3D prints are always better when they do something, and most often that means you’re printing multiple parts and assembling them together, or fussing with flexible 3D print material. Not so with this interesting design, which prints all in one go! Print and lift off the bed and it’s done!
Don’t believe me? Watch this video by David Musseffi, which shows the Fidget Star being 3D printed on a BCN3D Sigma:
It’s designs like this that make 3D printing a lot more fun. If kids can produce easy-to-print articulated functional designs like this, then they will be more attracted to the technology now and in the future.
Via Thingiverse (original) and Thingiverse (color version)
