3D Jigsaw Puzzle for Blind People

I am 16 years old and homeschooled.

There are over 40 million blind people around the world. That inspired me to create a 3D printed jigsaw puzzle for blind people. This puzzle can be solved with touch instead of sight.

The finished product of this puzzle is not an image. Instead, it is a 3D slant, which you can feel with your hands. Each piece has its own unique shape, giving a hint to its position in the finished product.

Of course, anyone can do this puzzle if they just close their eyes. I find it to be challenging and fun.

Here is what you will need for this project:

• A 3D printer
• A box
• Fusion (optional)

I made the model in Fusion. If you would like to make some changes to it, download the .f3d file. You could add some extra patterns or shapes to the top of the puzzle, change the angle of the slant, etc. If you would like to design your own puzzle from scratch (maybe make a bigger version?), I linked the website that I used to generate the base jigsaw puzzle layout.

I split the pieces up into individual .stl files, so that if you have limited build space on your 3D printer, you can print them out over multiple runs.

https://draradech.github.io/jigsaw/jigsaw.html

Print without supports, use 15% infill, and make sure each piece is printed with the bottom hole facing down. If you get too much elephant's foot on your prints, the pieces may not fit together properly. This model took about 3 hours to make on my Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro.

Now that everything has been printed, find a box for the pieces. If you can't see the pieces, it's important to keep them all in one place where they can't get lost.

The key to solving this puzzle, by touch only, is using the height and the slant angle of the top of each piece to figure out where it goes. To help differentiate the bottom from the top, the bottom has an easily identifiable hole. The way I like to solve it is completing the edges of the puzzle first and then filling in the middle.

I hope you can get some joy out of this project in some way. If you know someone who is blind, maybe you could make one of these for them. Please post your creations below in the "I Made It" section, as I would love to see them, especially if you made any modifications to the design.