Fractal Gigamaze

Fractal Gigamaze is a large-scale marble maze with a fractal maze pattern based on the dragon's curve. The first challenge in building this maze was the choice opf material. Plain PLA warps too much, resulting in an unusable warped maze. Even brims could not keep the maze onto its built place, it just pulled the magnet mat up. 3D-printed wood resulted in a beautiful flat maze, but with too much tiny pieces of fibre sticking out, blocking the rolling ball. The solution was to print the base in wood, and only the maze layer in PLA. The second challenge was the tinyness of the rolling ball. A 1-mm ball bearing fits well in the 1.5-mm alleys between the 1.5-mm walls, but it is hard to see and follow. The solution was the have 45-degrees tapered walls and a 3-mm ball bearing that is rolling between the walls, partly hanging over them.

Watch the YouTube video.

Please order a 3D-printed do-it-yourself puzzle kit from Shapeways at this page (check with Oskar about 3-mm ball bearings), or contact Oskar directly if you are interested in obtaining a fully colored, stickered and assembled sample of this puzzle.