Fish Cam Toy
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I modified the Edgerton K12 Cam Toy TinkerCad Model to make this swimming fish. The TinkerCad file camera
Supplies
- TinkerCad
- 3D Printer/slicer
- PLA filament
- TPU flex filament (can use paper or anything with a little give)
TinkerCad
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I modified the cams in tinkerCad. It was super easy to duplicate and make different cams. I did not modify the base, crank, and fish holders. I wanted to play around with different kinds of "swimming" so I just played around with circles and ovals, and moved the hole around. Here are some of the shapes I played with.
3D Print Pieces
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I had to print the fish holder multiple times. First, I didn't use 100% infill so the thin cylinder part snapped right off. Then, I had to make modifications for them to fit in the holes of the frame. In hindsight, I could've shrunk the cylinder part in tinkerCad pretty easily, but I just printed the whole model at 98% scale, which was faster. In some of the cams, I placed the hole too close to the edge and made the size too big, so the crank couldn't make 1 full rotation. Here are the two oval cams I felt made the best up-down motion. I rotated the hole 90 degrees so there would be a phase shift between the two holders.
The instructable said to use flexible tubing for bushings, but I didn't have any. I just made a small circle with the hole, and scaled it down to 95% for a snug fit. You can get away without, it is just less stable.
Make the Flexy Fish
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I drew two fish by hand and traced in Fusion360, then extruded to 1mm. Each of the pictured fish designs has little legs attached (not for walking) so they can attach to the holders. I printed them to be 1mm thick.