Ball Hinge in Tinkercad: Make Anything Hinged

I learned to make ball hinges while I was designing a hand for my Servo Robotic Hand project. In this Instructables project, I will first make a Ball Hinge and explain how we can use it to make anything hinged with a hands-on on a Bat model that we will import or copy from the gallery.

Supplies

1. Computer
2. Internet
3. Tinkercad account

Step 1: Creating Ball Hinge

1. Use solid box from Basic Shape menu and change its dimensions to Length = 15mm, Width= 15mm and Heignt= 10mm.
2. Use hole box(transparent), change its dimensions to Length = 5mm, Width= 15mm and Heignt= 20mm. Place this box into the solid box(Pic 1). Align them so that the sold box forms a "C" shape after grouping both of them.
3. Group both the boxes by selecting both the boxes and group them(Ctrl + G).
4. Now drag a sold sphere to the workplane. From Shape Menu change it to Hole and its Steps to 24(this will give it a smooth surface). The diameter of this sphere will be 9mm(or L=9, W=9, H=9).
5. Align this hole sphere in the sold C shaped box and group them together.
6. Place a sold sphere with a diameter = 7mm and Steps = 24 inside the space formed by the Hole sphere. It should not touch the solid box.
7. Group a solid cube and a cylinder(Sides = 64). Resize and rotate it so that the rounded head aligns with the solid sphere.
8. Select all the shapes and group them together. The Ball Hinge is ready.

Step 2: Copying and Importing

For the second part of this project, we need a Bat design first, We can either design it ourself or:

Copy and Tinker:

Go to Tinkercad's gallery and search for a bat. Choose from the search results and then click "Copy and Tinker".

Import:

Search for "Bat free SVG" in google images. Choose from the search results and download the file on your computer. Then create a new 3d design project in Tinkercad. Now click on "Import"(Right of the screen). Click on "Choose a File" in the pop-up window. Upload the SVG file you downloaded, click on Import and you are ready to go.

Step 3: Flapping Bat

1. Use Hole box from Basic Shape menu and change its dimensions to Length = 11mm, Width= 15mm and Heignt= 15mm.
2. Use another hole box with dimension Length = 50mm, Width= 1mm and Heignt= 15mm.
3. Align the first box in the middle of the second box and group them together to form a "T" shape. You can now use this hole T shape to place the ball hinges on bat wings.
4. For this, Place this hollow T shape on the bat's wing and group them to form a hole, Place the ball hinge in this hole space and group them all.

Step 4: