I have always been a huge fan of snow. I really like the unique and symmetric structure of snowflake. For this week's assignment, I designed and printed different components of a snowflake and press fitted them together.

Step 1: Change the Printer Nozzle

I have been having some clogged nozzle problem and the extrusion has been very strange. I followed the tutorial online and changed the nozzle.

Step 2: Test the Tolerance

Since my design mainly utilized holes and cylinders to connect together, the first step was to test the tolerance. I used two sets of holes and cylinders for the parts. The first set of holes had a diameter of 0.52cm. In order to test what the diameter of the cylinder gave the most snug fit, I printed 5 cylinders with diameters 0.5cm, 0.48cm, 0.46cm, and 0.44cm, respectively. The cylinder with diameter of 0.5cm gave the best fit. I used the same method and found that a 0.32cm diameter for holes and 0.29cm diameter for cylinders give the best result for my second set.

Step 3: Design the Snow Center

With tolerance in mind, I first designed the snow center. I extruded from a hexagon and used boolean difference to create a hole with a diameter of 0.52cm and depth of 0.4cm on each side.

big_snow_center.stl
Download View in 3D

Step 4: Design the Snow Branch

The snow branch would build on top of the snow center. I created three cylinders with diameter of 0.5cm and joined them together as the main branch. Then, on each cylinder I also created holes with diameter 0.32cm for smaller branches to take place. For smaller branch, I created some cylinders with diameter of 0.29cm and some trident shape.