Penguin Trap

Hello! My name is Soyun (Lisa) Park, a 9th-grade student at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado. I made a game called "Penguin Trap" through Fusion 360, which is a simple, fun game to play with the family. I remember playing this game as a child when I was young, so I thought it would be fun to make it through Fusion 360!

To make this game, you need to download Fusion 360.

Link: https://www.autodesk.com/education/edu-software/overview?sorting=featured&filters=individual

Before I tell how to make Penguin Traps, let's talk about the rule first. Penguin Trap is a game for 2 to 4 players. The rule is to use a hammer to hit down the ice cube when it comes to your turn, and the person who makes the penguin on the ice cube fall loses! You could play by taking a turn with your friends or family, or you could play it using a wheel! It is more fun to play with the wheel, and there are many versions of the wheel in Penguin Trap. For example, as you can see in the picture above, it includes skipping a turn, only hitting the darker color of the ice cube or the light color of an ice cube. You could also add how many ice cubes you could hit it down per turn! That's basically it for the rules, and now let's talk about how to make this game by using Fusion 360.

First, we need to make the most important part of the Penguin Trap, which is the ice plate! To make an ice plate, I am going to click "Create," then "Polygon," and "Circumscribed Polygon" to make a hexagon, which is going to be the shape of an ice plate. After clicking those three steps, it will make a hexagon for you. I set my unit as cm, so I change the length side on the hexagon to 15 cm. After all these steps, you should have a neat hexagon. Then, we have to make that shape in 3D. I first clicked "Patch" to make the empty spaces fill, then clicked "Extrude" to actually make a 3D shape! I decide to make the height 4 cm. After following this step, you will have the 3D hexagon shape (ice plate) like the photo above.

Now we are going to make the little ice cube inside the ice plate! To make an ice cube, the process is exactly the same as the step about how to make an ice plate, but the size has to be smaller. So I decide to make the side length of the ice cube as 3 cm and the height as 3.5 cm. Now, we have to make a hole inside the ice cube to make it lighter so that when the player tries to hit it down, it can actually go down. Similar to what we have done so far, we make another hexagon but with a side length of 2.7cm and a height of 3.2cm. After putting that more tiny hexagon inside of the ice cube, click "Plastic" -> "Extrude" and click "Cut" to cut that tiny piece inside the ice cube. Then it will look like the photo above of this step. Then copy and paste the ice cube another 13 times. Finally, add color to the ice cube with any color you like to make it look nice! I did white and dark blue to represent ice.

After you have made all thirteen ice cubes, now we have to cut some of the shapes inside of the ice plate so the 13 ice cubes can fit in. To do this, I copy and paste the 2D hexagon part from the size of the ice cube and bring it to the front of the ice plate that I want to cut. After bringing that hexagon in front of the ice plate, you click "Plastic" -> "Extrude" and click "Cut," which will cut that hexagon, but now it will have the shape of a hole of the hexagon. Then you repeat this step another 13 times. After repeating it another 13 times, add any color you want the ice plate to be! I added the color blue.

Now, we have to make a leg for the ice plate so it can stand. I made four legs with a hexagon shape, but for this step, you can make any shape for the leg as long as it stands. To make a hexagon leg, it is exactly the same step as Step 1, but you have to make it longer. Same with the ice plate color, I colored with blue.

After making a leg, we have to make a hammer so we can hit the ice cube. To make a hammer for this board game, I used a rectangular shape for the handle of the hammer and made the square round by clicking "Filet" for the top part of the hammer, and you also have to make it as 3D, which is basically the same step with the many other steps you saw above. Then I colored the hammer black. 

Finally, we have to make the penguin! For this step, you could use any shape to represent the penguin as long as it stands on the ice cube. For me, I used a rectangular 2D shape first and made that into 3D for the penguin's body. Then similar to how we built the hammer, I used "Filet" to make the edge round. Then I added eyes and feet by using the shape circle and rectangular shapes and then turning those shapes into 3D. 

Now we have all materials we need to play the game. After placing all of the ice cubes on the ice plate and finally the penguins on top of the ice cubes, you are ready to play the game! Enjoy playing Penguin Traps!