Hi all!
I know it's weird, but I've been having these dreams for some time now in which I had a BIG
friend cube! (well, a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm version of it).
But just sizing up the original isn't much of a challenge
So I thought it would be fun to have it as a "do-it-yourself" building kit, a) for testing my design skills, b) having the fun of assembling something cool and c) for having Shapeways not loosing ~700+ cm2 of material that would otherwise get trapped inside.
I've designed the faces of the cube to be plates with little pins on them and small triangles with little notches in them that go on the inside. The notches and pins are square so they should make a nice square fit. Don't worry, I've kept some clearance in mind, so they'll fit together. They should also give the whole structure some more rigidity while not waisting much space inside, so when assembled (leaving 1 plate unglued) you'd end up with a cool box to put something in
Some worries:
1) I've maybe made the triangles a bit too small to give enough rigidity? (they are 20mm).
2) The triangles being the exact size to fit inside the inner corners of the cube. I was thinking there too needs to be a slight clearance (like ~0,1/0,2mm) to make sure they fit. But it makes me doubt if that's true.. because, for example, if you have 1 plate with a triangle on it, the fitting from the pins should position it in the exact corner.
So the entire kit should consist of 6 plates and 8 triangles
The plates:
The triangles:
The fitting on the inside:
I'm not sure how to 'offer' this kit, a) a complete set with all 6 plates and 8 triangles or b) as separate parts, so you'd have to order 6 plates and 8 triangles. Option a would be most practical for the end user and option b would be a better 'way' to make money for me, as I can put markup on the individual parts. But I think option b will cause extra costs as for every part you'd have to pay the initial 'start-up' fee.
My preference goes to option a as I'm not intending to squeeze every penny out of a buyer and make more money that way, but I want to have a product that gives the buyer a complete package.
Any thoughts, tips, concerns etc. would be much appreciated!