Sigma-shaped Puzzle

Do you like puzzles ? In french, we call them "casse-tête", which is litteraly "brain-breaker". A puzzle is indeed far more fun if you "break your brain" to solve it... Personnaly, I find thinking about intricate puzzles so interesting, so as soon as I saw this contest, I wanted to take part.

For making this puzzle, you will need :

• Autodesk Fusion 360 (it can be downloaded for free with limited functionnalities here)
• A 3D printer
• Filament for 3D printing
• A 3D printing software (e.g. Ultimaker Cura)
• Paint (if you want to embellish the puzzle)
• Cutter/knife, for "cleaning" parts after printing

For a puzzle, something very important is the shape, so that it is attractive : what could be stylish when organised in sphere ? (I would indeed like to make a spherical puzzle)

I looked for a symmetrical shape (it is much more nice!) and a symbol for giving some character to the puzzle. I found the perfect symbol : the Sigma Σ, a letter of the Greek alphabet. When organised as I want, it looks like a star.

In this design, there is 6 different parts, and several will be printed twice or more.

• The first one is obviously the sigma : for designing it, I took a PNG file and imported it as a canva in Fusion 360.

All others parts are very similar : they are made on the same principle.

I was careful to allow for margins so that the parts would fit together well.

I don't have 3D printer for now, so I used my school's one. The printing took 5 hours.

To print these parts, we need to :

• Save them as a STL files
• Import them in Cura
• Place them for the best printing
• Begin the printing

Some parts will need to be printed several times : this is indicated in the names of the files.

The assembly is probably harder than the disassembly : I made some little videos to show you that.

Animations are probably easier to understand than the "real" video...

Now it's your turn: make it and enjoy !

Goodbye,

FrenchDIY