Design Challenge #1

HA! I just finished drawing the main unit from your JPG, only to see that you’d posted the SVG. //headdesk

Oh well, here’s the basic unit, without the pieces dropped in:

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Am I looking at this wrong? It looks like there are cutouts for 8 spacers, yet I only see 7 spacers on the design…

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Dude. You. Are. A. Saint! That’s awesome!! Thank you! Looking at it in 3d the stands are definitely too tall. Ha-ha.

@davidhknowles Yup, you’re right, I miscounted. My bad. It was a late night design. Ha-ha.

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Yeah, I added one to make it work.

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@likeablejerk! You beat me to it again! You really are a “likeable jerk” :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Here’s the one I made in Fusion 360.

To improve on the design, I would cut slots into the large pieces, so they “sit” in the leg slots rather than just on top of them (you may have to make the sides a little wider to accommodate the slots. I think it would feel much more solid that way.

Otherwise, I really like what you did. Good job.

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That’s what you get for making yours all shiny and fancy!

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Thanks @polarbrainfreeze for the visualization!! I really need to get on that learning Fusion thing. Haha.

Yeah, I agree the legs are a weak point I realized that last night, but was too tired to fix it. Haha. I’ll revise it before I cut it in Dec crosses fingers! Thanks again!!! You guys are the bomb.

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Updated SVG for the Connect 4.

  1. Added missing spacer
  2. Shortened legs
  3. Added interlocking slot for legs.
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Here are a couple of my designs.
First a jigsaw puzzle, my design base on Penrose Tiles ( look them up) except at the edges.
Actually I have just discovered a great inkscape extension which does more convention ones.
The second is one of my clocks, weight driven 30 Hour, pendulum controlled. I substituted laser ready pillars to stay within the rules, but I really prefer 3d printed ones.

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That clock is legit! very cool.
That light blue cog in the center worries me if it really is an outline like that. Is it just for looks?

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It runs the hour hand, meshing with the winding assembly on its left. You can see it is attached to 6 spokes.The power transmission is minuscule, so I cut it out like that to make it fancy. 1/8 acrylic or plywood should be plenty strong enough.

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Love the clock in particular. Is it functional, as in run by a weight or something?

Yes, the model does not show it complete. There is a weight on a cord or ballchain wrapped round the leftmost wheel, and a pendulum in the middle. I have several alternative escapements (Clock escapements are my ‘thing’). I’ll actually start with a simpler design without the second hand and power reserve hand. The power reserve hand was just a design challenge, since you can see the weight as it falls, and even put a scale with the day on the wall behind it. I always quote Denton Cooley, the heart surgeon " well… if you want to make things complicated".

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So, we have the trebuchets and the cows, but how about something to launch the cows at? Basic finger-joined boxes with open bottoms that can notch onto an engraved grid…set up your city and see how good your trebuchet aim is!

Modeled with 1/8" material in mind. Attempted to correct for kerf, but with no material or laser cutter it’ll obviously need some tweaking. I included an illustrator file because for some reason the site isn’t letting me upload an svg. In the first image below, solid red is engrave, with all the lines being cut all the way through. The rectangles in the bottom right of the sheet can be glued to the inside face of the building top pieces- I figured it might help them be a little top heavy and more topple-prone when struck by flying cows. I suppose the grid base isn’t totally necessary, but it kind of gave it all a bit of a “battleship” board game feel that I couldn’t resist :smiley:

design challenge_city.AI (96.5 KB)

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Love this and a great addition to the current submissions. Definitely going to be making these to go with the trebuchet.

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I like it! and your 3d model looks good too.
This is turning into a crowd designed board game. Ill think about some rules :wink:

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Thanks @andistarnes and @nick07lee :blush: I’m definitely planning on making a more complex iteration with fancier architectural details…being able to just draw them straight on the material and have the glowforge live-trace it will be SO cool!

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Hmm,
Need more game pieces than a cow. How about Godzilla, King Kong, Mothra, Megatron, The Hulk, etc.

How many others can we come up with?

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I love the skyline. It’d also be kinda fun to do the windows cut all the way through and then doing thin paper backing on the pieces so cows could be thrown through windows.

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Great. Although like those milk bottle games at the carnival, I’d make one building bottom weighted so it’s hard to knock down. Makes it more challenging😃

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