Fun Geometric Telescoping Fidget

Lesson Activity: 

Project Summary -

Create a telescoping fidget device using sketch offsets and drafted extrusions/cuts. You’ll work with a partner as "accountabillbuddies," giving each other feedback on designs and helping solve issues as they come up. Your designs don’t need to be identical, but it may simplify the process if they are.

Construction Instructions:

1. Design Inspiration

• Find a reference  image on Google to model your design off of
• Save it as a jpeg 

                                                     The reference for my design

2. Model Basics in Solidworks

• Create a basic 3D reference shape (square, circle, etc.) that you want your design to encompass and Boss Extrude it.
• Add Image: Right-click the top face > Appearance > Face > Advanced > Browse to add your jpg to it so you can see it

3. Create Layers

• Start a new sketch on the front plane and using the image you added in the previous step, trace the reference image’s outline using lines and curves.

                                           This is after I traced the reference Image

• Offset this layer inwards by 0.1 cm until you have about 16 layers.

                            This is after offsetting the shapes inwards as much as I could

4. Extrude Layers

• Delete the initial extrusion.
• Boss Extrude the outermost line of your new sketch with:
  • Height: 1 cm
  • Angle: 25 degrees

5. Cut Layers

• Select the next layer, reverse direction, and cut “Through-All” with:
  • Angle: 15 degrees
• Repeat for each layer.

           That is what it should look like after it is all extruded and just keep on doing it until                                                                   the entire thing is done.

6. Mirror

• Mirror all layers on the Front Plane as Bodies then merge.
• Now you have a fully completed Fidget. 

                                   The final product should look something like this.

Design Choices: 

During the process of designing, I made many oversights and ended up remaking my design 2 times.

                                                                Original concept

                                                                          Version 1

This is the first version of the model I made. I tried to divide it into 4 sections: the middle and the 3 outer circles. I realized the spiral pattern couldn't work very quickly cause for this project to work there have to be multiple sections to design to offset but a spiral is one continuous shape so that wouldn't work. So I decided to just have a circle pattern. I decided to start over from the beginning because when I started, I forgot to dimension certain things and was mainly experimenting with making a pattern that resembled the reference image. The sides and measurements were not equal and when I tried to fix them they would cause more problems, so I just decided to start from the start, and using what I learned from this first one I’d make it better.

                                                                      Version 2 -

I started the same way tracing out the reference shape and then I just tried to make it as geometrically equal as possible. I made sure all the arcs and circles were equal before I did anything with the inside pattern. I also decided to shrink the triangle design in the middle to have space for just full circles to simplify the design so I could go without the complex arc pattern I had before which caused me a lot of problems last time from all the circles being connected into one whole geometry. Now I began working on a new more creative pattern on the inside which I made by inserting two circles inside each of the 3 circles.

Then I saw that this gave me a cool design in each of the circles. It divided each circle into 4 parts: the two circles on either side and two rounded triangles on the bottom and top. I was happy with this design so I started offsetting each part to finalize the sketch. Finally, I extruded it and did all the steps to finish it.

This is what the final version looked like. I was very happy with how the design turned out; we'd just have to see how it worked once printed. After printing, I realized a problem that hadn't been addressed until now that it was printed. Because I had cut up the design into so many parts I wasn't able to get as many offsets as is typically recommended in this project. This led to just not a lot of movement with this model as is shown in the Extra Photos section. So the design was modified one last time to address this problem.

                                                                         Version 3

This design just focused on one circle instead of three like I had before so this one circle could be larger and fit more offsets. This one once printed was able to move significantly more than the previous version. 

Overall both the second model and this third model worked that's why I decided to include both files. Both are amazing Fidget toys in their way from the mesmerizing patterns of the second model to the fascinating amount the third model telescopes out both are great prints. 

Extra Photos:

A section view of the final fidget shows the space between the layers and shows how this thing works.

Showing how much the 2nd version moves It still does make noise and moves up and down but not a lot.

Showing how much the fidget moves this was the final version and it mode down a lot more than the 2nd version.

                                                                 Size Comparison