Tic Tac Toe in a Box (Tinkercad)

We are going to create a Tic Tac Toe box game in Tinkercad to 3D Print and play.

The box acts as a carry case as well as the playing board.

Lets get started, we will need a computer or tablet, a 3d printer and at least 3 colours of filament.

Supplies

Computer

3D Printer

3 differently coloured filaments

Step 1: Defining the Tic Tac Toe Board

First lets open up Tinkercad and import the plain box file attached here.

We are going to create a grid in the box to play on.

Add a cube and make the depth 2mm and the length 90mm, now click on it and make it into a hole.

Copy and paste this object and set a gap between the two of approximately 26mm. Now align the two objects in the y axis and group them (see first picture).

Copy and paste this object, rotate by 90 degrees and align with the first (see second picture)

We need to use this object to create a grid but we don't want it to mae a hole in the base of the box so lets raise it up (z axis) by 8mm.

Align the grid and the box only in the y axis. Set it to the middle by eye for the x axis (we can't align it because of the hinge at the back)

Now group the box and the grid and you should see a nice defined grid set in to the box.

Step 2: Making the Playing Pieces

Add a cylinder 20mm x 20mm by 15mm high, this will be our 'Nought' piece

Add a small cylinder (I used 14mmx14mm), make it into a hole and align with the original cylinder.

Group them together and there you have your 'Nought' piece (pic 1)

For the 'Cross' piece lets add a cube and make it 3mm wide, 28mm long and 15mm high.

Copy and paste this piece and rotate one 45 degrees and the other -45 degrees.

Align these pieces, group them together and there you have your 'Cross' piece (pic 2)

When we get to printing we will need to print 4 Nought and 5 Cross pieces.

Now we need to make some holes for them to sit in

Step 3: Making the Holes

We need to create a hole that is big enough for either a Nought or a Cross piece to sit in comfortably while still feeling snug and looking custom made for the job.

Lets first take a slightly larger cylinder than the Nought, I found 21mm x 21mm was a good size

Now lets add a cube and make it 4mm wide by 29mm long - slightly longer and wider than when we made the Cross piece

Copy and paste it and again rotate one 45 degrees and the other -45 degrees.

Align and group the two pieces

Now we have two shapes slightly larger than each of the pieces.

We need a hole that either playing piece can fit into so lets combine the two shapes by aligning them and grouping them together (pic 3).

Yay we have a hole shape that either playing piece should fit into nicely - now lets set them into the board

Step 4: Adding the Holes to the Board

Okay - not far to go now :)

Lets take our hole, copy and paste it twice and set them in a straight line

Make sure the holes are evenly space and lay them over the box to make sure they sit in the grid nicely.

Group this set of three holes and copy and paste it twice.

Create a square with your holes (see pic 1), group them and lay them over the box.

Align in the y axis and centre by eye for the x axis.

The holes need to be just deep enough for the pieces to sit in without been so deep that we make a hole in the base of the box or the pieces are difficult to take out.

Raise up the square of holes (z axis) until they are 4mm above zero (pic 2)

Group the box and holes and download the stl.

Yay the box is completed and ready to print

Step 5: Adding a Label to the Lid

We could leave the lid plain but I like the idea of having the title of the game on it.

Download the plain lid into Tinkercad

Add text and type what you would like to have on the front of the box: Tic Tac Toe, Noughts and Crosses, Nat's Game etc

Resize your text so it is slightly smaller than the lid and is 0.5mm high.

Rotate your lid 180 degrees so the top is facing up and align the text and the lid - make sure to align the height to the top edge.

Group the lid and text - there it's done

Rotate your lid by 180 degrees again, we need to print it upside-down

Now download the stl

Okay time to slice and print

Step 6: Slicing

Slice your box and your pieces (4x Noughts, 5x Crosses) using your normal settings

With the lid make sure you do NOT have supports selected.

You can slice the lid in one colour as the words will show up nicely or, like me, you can add a colour change to make them even clearer - need a hand with colour changes? Let me know, I can help :)

Now lets print our Tic Tac Toe in a Box

Step 7: Printing and Prep

Print your Box, Noughts and Crosses in 3 different colours.

I printed my lid, starting with the box colour and changing to the nought colour.

Once printed you need to push a piece of 1.75mm filament through the hinges to hold the lid in place

Now lets play

Step 8: Tic Tac Toe

Tic Tac Toe (or Noughts and Crosses) is played by two players

Remove the pieces from the box and give the crosses to one player and the noughts to the other.

The player with the crosses starts and each player places a piece in turn.

The winner is the player who makes a line (straight or diagonal) of three pieces.

Have fun :)