The 32 Crystallographic Point Groups ("Teddy" set)

Just a bunch of Teddy amateur acrobats enacting the 32 crystallographic point groups (a.k.a. crystal classes). Heavily inspired by and dedicated to Howard Flack. There's a fair chance he would have enjoyed this.

Note: These models can be printed, but it is not advised (see below). They were designed to be thrown on a beamer for classroom use. Before you print, double-check the symmetries for any mistakes I might have made. I'll correct them if you make me aware of any errors, just don't blame me for lost filament. I'm fairly confident it's all correct, but then again I'm just some guy.

Not every model is necessarily as small as possible. I tried making it reasonably easy to recognize the symmetry elements, while getting funny poses and some variety. I also tried to avoid completely unprintable geometries, even though the set was not initially intended for printing. Whenever it made sense, I aligned the potential internal mirror plane of the teddy with a symmetry element, to reduce the number of figurines.

Check out my other symmetry models:

Minimal set
Didactic set
(Pseudo-)Minerals set
Simple Set
Molecules set
Real Life Set
Spheres (Pac-Man)
Spheres (rings)

Printing hints:

Fair warning, FDM printing a full set of these will damage your wallet (see below for total filament consumption) and your sanity. That said, it is possible and I have included .3mf project files so you can copy the settings or just reprint them. Consider them tested, I used exactly these files for my prints. However, I played it safe with the more complex models and did not print the whole plate in one go. I had no failed prints, but better safe than sorry - it is a lot of filament and many supports that could break off. You absolutely need organic (!) supports and enough patience for their removal (some models require needle-nose pliers and a hobby knife, to reach inside-facing supports). Some of the supported surfaces will not look very nice, it just is what it is and there is not much point wasting fancy expensive filament on these models. Even then the full project will at least set you back 50-60 USD. Models in the project files are already painted, if you want to import my settings but need single color, just delete the multimaterial painting objects.  If you choose to cut and glue models, have a bag of rubber bands ready.

I did some trial&error, my final recommendations are (for everything else use Prusaslicer defaults):

- 0.2 mm layers (it takes forever, with 0.1 mm it takes 2x forever)
- 10% infill
- Scarf joint placement (on contours)
- Generate support material (organic, branch diameter 3 mm, branch density 40%)
- I cut some models in half to reduce the amount of supports. I don't know if these are feasible to print in one piece. The cuts are already done in the provided project files. I generally avoided cuts that do not align with an existing mirror plane (exception: 622 where the model is designed to distract from the cut).
- Some of the models end up with open vertices when cut by Prusaslicer, but it can automatically fix them (works only on Windows). This is already done in my project files.
- I placed the connectors asymmetrically, so you cannot assemble the models incorrectly.
- Connector tolerances are loose, you need glue (and a few rubber bands to hold it together).
- I rendered pre-cut stls of those cubic models where it would be hard to align the dowels in Prusaslicer (432 and 23). I managed to mess up the dowel placement for 23 twice, and then lost patience, so the current version might work or not. But not much is lost if the dowels don't line up - just don't use them if that happens (it's what I did). 23 is the only model that is tricky to glue, the best way seems to be: Start by assembling it completely with 6 rubber bands between the arms of neigboring pieces. Then carefully pull it apart at each connection to add glue, one by one. You can wrap some electrical tape around the connections during drying, but I didn't really find it necessary.
- I don't think you can go down in scale a lot with FDM printing. The supports are necessary and will become increasingly difficult to remove. With a resin printer you can of course go much smaller.
- I included a folder with 40% scaled models pre-cut for submitting to an SLA (resin) print service. The biggest models are about 8x8x8 cm at this scale. You'll need to have some of these printed twice and glue (note that some have two non-identical parts). The cut locations are geared towards SLA, and there are no alignment pins (would be too small). 1-minute superglue works well, no need to clamp the parts together (with regular glue you'll need rubber bands). To get an idea of the cost: I paid ~35 USD (including shipping) for the 5 cubic models, using the cheapest available material (about the same as 100% scale with FDM, which will require 2 spools of filament). I haven't tested the other models with SLA, so try at your own risk.

Filament needed (including supports & using my suggested settings):
triclinic: ~100 g
monoclinic: ~120 g
orthorhombic: ~260 g 
tetragonal: ~740 g
trigonal: ~390 g
hexagonal: ~1370 g
cubic: ~1850 g
total: ~4.85 kg (assuming no failed prints)