Final Project Proposal: amiibo Stand

So here's a fun fact: anyone who's ever interacted with me for more than five minutes at a time probably knows that I am a huge Nintendo fan, and have been since I was just a little kid. Recently, I've been into collecting these little figurines Nintendo distributes called amiibo. They're super cute, and I just love the idea of having real-world manifestations of some of my favorite characters sitting on my desk, keeping me company.

But, the problem is, my desk is kind of small. I'd really love to have somewhere to display these little figurines that's a bit more special - perhaps someplace of my own creation? With that thought, my idea for my final project was born: a 3D printed stand for my amiibo to live on.

I was inspired by looking at the amiibo search tag on Thingiverse and seeing that others had made stands of some sort for their amiibo as well.  However, for the most part, I found these stands to be... underwhelming at best.  Some of them are kind of cool, sure, but I want to make something completely unique to me and my personal design tastes.

My current idea can be seen in two forms below (a sketch and a simple paper mock-up):

Sketch of the current project idea.

Simple paper mock-up showing where each of the nine amiibo would be able to sit.
(Please excuse my messy kitchen table!)

The piece would have a flat arc going around the edge, able to hold six amiibo.  In the center would be a winner's podium-type stand, able to hold an additional three amiibo (probably whichever are my favorites at the time). Ideally, I'd like this to be able to mount to the wall somehow, but I'll think more about how to do that once I've got my 3D model started.

I understand that this project will not be able to be printed in one piece, given the size limitations of our printers. However, I welcome the challenge of making this a multi-piece project, and really hope to create something that I'm proud to take home at the end of the semester.

Paige Ruka

Virtual Vehicle: Printing in Progress

Some good news: as I mentioned in my last post, printing of our skull vehicle is underway!  So far, we have the base of the vehicle (the actual skull) printed, and one wheel out of four has been printed as well.  A few redesigns happened to both the wheel and the spike capping off the axel to optimize them for printing, which will be apparent once all the components are printed and the vehicle is put together.

As it stands, the wheel we have is screwed into the base of the vehicle and rests against a washer so it is able to spin.  This is what we'll do for the other three wheels as well; however we still wanted to cap things off with the axel spike that Amber designed.  To do that, we had to expand the base of the spike, as well as cut a hole in it big enough to fit around the bolt attached to the wheel.

The base, the first wheel, and some test prints of the axel spike. 

A closer look at some of the prints, tested at different scales of the model.

An issue became apparent in the very first test print of the spike: at 100% scale, the hole in the spike was not big enough to fit around the bolt.  Bryan was able to help us fix this issue by printing tests at different scales to the original; after some experimentation, he concluded that printing the spike at 108% resulted the spike and the bolt being a perfect fit for each other.

More detailed pictures of the base will come when the vehicle is completely printed - you'll have to be patient with me just a bit longer for that!

Paige Ruka

Sheet Metal Vessel: Fabrication

I'm back from my half-month hiatus here on my blog, and with me I've brought something very special: photographs of my completed sheet metal vessel! Please, take a look below:

This has by far been the most challenging project in this course for me, and I had to overcome many obstacles to see it through to the end.  However, I am proud that I persevered and thankful that I had plenty of help along the way.

So, what's next for my work in this course?  First, our skull vehicle is partially printed; we don't have all the components finalized and printed quite yet, but I think it's looking great so far, and it's very cool to see the 3D printer work its magic!  Also on the horizon is our semester-end project - it looks as though it's very open-ended, so I'm excited to start thinking of what I might create for that.  I already have a few ideas in mind, but we'll have to wait and see if they work out... crossing my fingers!

Paige Ruka