Greetings From Berlin - for now anyway :-)

Hello Everybody,

I was chatting with a friend online about how I might go about making a game called Rombo and he said to come here and see what people have to say. RIght now I'm making it out of origami, but I'm definitely open to saving myself some time . The next hurdle is how to stick them together... magnets, lego-ish snappy things, etc...

Anyhow. I'm happy to be here and look forward to seeing some interesting projects as well as to meet some interesting folks.

All the best,
Daniel

Wow, neat concept, reminds me of something that would be played on star trek. I'd have it be a simple snapping mechanism. How do you get them to stick now?

Hi,

Very cool !
A magnet snap system would be really nice for this.
(check out surplus magnets at kj magnetics)

But I can imagine some problems with equal poles, which would occur with any connection system I guess.

Anyway, welcome, and keep us updated

Cheers,

Stijn

That's funny because we were discussing with Bhearn on how do make rhombic dodecahedra that could connect each others, on this page:
https://www.shapeways.com/model/61910/geomblocks_t_o_set.html

I have a very precise idea on how to do my own design (wireframed rhombic dodecahedra with hooks on the edges), but I don't know how to do it with my tools. I hope Bhearn will be more successful.
Regards,

Magic.
(and welcome, BTW )

wow what a warm welcome. you guys rock.

I don't have enough shapes really to stick together into a cluster. I've been horrible at choosing what size I want so I just have a couple completed shapes in various sizes
I imagine I'll need maybe 10 or so to play with and see how they cluster.

About magnet polarity. This was a big problem (and maybe still is).
I'm not sure if I can explain this, but I'll try...
I figure that since each side has an exact opposite, like a coin, arrangement of the magnets would be arbitrary under 2 conditions.
1. If one side is + then the exact opposite side must be -
2. When clustering the rhombic dodec...s lol all must be placed in at the same angle.

For purposes of the game the second condition might be able to be met if maybe the top face of each RD said something like 'rombo' on it. Then, if I'm not mistaken, all of the polarities should work out fine.

I'm wondering if I should move this conversation to another part of the forum...?

I checked out the Material's page. I'm assuming that the PA2200 would be the material to go for, but I really don't know. Any suggestions?

There's also a problem of what technique to use to get the magnets into the RD. Hmm...

Nah, you introduced yourself and how you found your way here. You didn't really ask for help we gave it . If you want, you could always start a new one in "Work in Progress" would probably be the best spot.

Do they even need to snap together? How about just making a nice base plate on which to start the game that begins the packing. Then moves would have to be restricted to placements where RD's could rest stabilized by gravity.

In the current version of the game, it it legal to pick the whole pile up and place a piece on the bottom, underneath the other pieces?

The PA2200, also called SWF, is great because it is very strong but not brittle. You might also consider white, black or transparent detail. But if the pieces need to snap together, these materials may break.

The game is played from all sides. ie you can pick the whole thing up, turn it around and put a piece wherever you want as long as the new piece connects to 2 different faces.

How to get the magnets inside the RD (as well as what strength and size of magnet I should use) is my next puzzle.

This is really cool! As for getting the magnets in the pieces: I'd suggest printing each individual piece as two hollow shells. Glue the magnets onto the inside of the shells, then glue the shells together.

Welcome to Shapeways.
We love our community and passion that we see daily on these boards.

I remember working on a project with magnets a while ago and I believe that if you attach a magnet to a small metal plate, then you can attach a similar magnet with the any polarity on the other side of the plate and also side by side, (however if I remember correctly, the exposed sides of the magnet still repulsed) but if you line the 2 halfes with steel plates on all faces, i think it should help.

Another idea, is to use some RBs with strong magnets, and the others with metal mass (nuts for example). in ratio 1:5 maybe. This should alleviate the problem of polarity. at least for testing, and would add heft to the game pieces.

Hope to see this in 'it arrived' section soon

Me too! I'm off to the Netherlands until next week so I'll have to get back to this later. It's great to see so many people's input! Thanks y'all. I'm really looking forward to seeing this project in my hands!

Daniel

I would use a lego type of joining method, perhaps something along the lines of this?

looks cool, but that kind of snap mechanism won't work if you need to slide a piece into a position which is connected to more than one face. I'm horrible at explaining things. Does that make sense? It's possible that it will need to slide into a position where it connects to 9 faces.

I understand. That leaves you in a very tricky situation. you could make them stainless, and polish them real nice, and slide them together. Don't know if you've ever taken 2 really smooth pieces of steel and slide them face to face, they'll stick. Don't know if velcro would work either with the limitations.

So far I'm planning to use the PA2200 and use the method that Ushanka suggested above. The only other option I was thinking about was to make a kind of slot parallel to each face where I can slide the magnet in and then fill the slot with something, but that's really only if I can find a way to cover the hole unnoticeably.

I still don't really know the feel of these products so I'll definitely do a test run of just a few when all is sorted. It might be nice to round the edges just a little bit as well...