The following information is a single lesson in a larger Tinkercad project. Check out this and more projects on Tinkercad.

Project Overview:

These fun lessons are designed for those who have advanced beginner - intermediate level Tinkercad skills and assumes you are a rock star and already know how to create, move, align, scale, group, rotate and group objects. These lessons will not include specific instructions on how to do execute these tasks. For example, a lesson will provide a high-level instruction such as "create a box with dimensions X,Y and Z” and assumes you know how to do it. Detailed instructions on new concepts are included but previous concepts are abstracted.

If you need a refresher on foundational Tinkercad skills, we encourage you to review the "Let's Learn Tinkercad" project.

Step 1: Background

Chess is a game recognized around the world.

Dozens of cultures have taken this game and adapted the pieces to fit their own histories, from marble figures influenced by Aztec art, to the latest and greatest Sci-Fi movie!

However, the most iconic set is the Staunton design, which was designed and sold in 1849!

This design has elegant, sweeping curves, faceted features, and primitive shapes as well. These features make the Staunton Chess Set an interesting, but accessible, challenge for Tinkercad!

Instructions

Continue to the next step.

Step 2: Creating the Elegant Curve

The bodies of the Staunton pieces have a very elegant but complex curve to them. This feature is the most challenging of the shapes to produce, but because it's the body of the piece, we need to make it first. Fortunately, it really is rather simple to make this shape.

Instructions

Set the Snap Grid to 0.5mm
Drag a cylinder to the Workplane and scale the height of the cylinder to 25mm.
Drag a thick torus to the workplane and resize the torus so that it is 36mm in diameter and 50mm tall.
Change the torus to a hole and use the align tool to center both shapes along the X and Y axes.
Group these two shapes.
Continue to the next step.

Step 3: Creating the Next Curve

This step will create the rings starting from the bottom. You've already created the very bottom ring from the basic shape. This step will create the thick ring above.

Instructions

Drag a Half sphere to the Workplane and change the height to 4 mm.
Raise this half sphere 1.5mm off of the workplane.
Drag a Sphere to the workplane and change the height to 3 mm.
Align these shapes to the pawn along the X and Y axes and group all the shapes.
Continue to the next step.

Step 4: Creating the Small Step

Now, let's create the small right-angled step just above the base.

Instructions

Drag out a cylinder shape to the workplane and resize it to 16mm in diameter and 5mm high.
Use the align tool to center this new cylinder with the pawn along the X and Y axes.
Group all of the objects.
Continue to the next step.

Step 5: Creating the Top of the Pawn

Lastly, the pawn needs a collar and head. Because we need to worry about overhangs when designing for 3DP, we're going to use a cone with a 45° slope to create our collar.

Instructions

Drag out a Cone to the workplane and resize it to 14mm in diameter and 7mm high.
Rotate the cone about the Y Axis 180° so that it is pointing down.
Use the Align tool to center the cone to the pawn along the X and Y axes, and to the upper limit on the Z axis.
Drag out a sphere and resize it to 12mm in diameter.
Translate the sphere along the Z axis to 23mm above the workplane, and then use the Align tool to center the sphere to the pawn along the X and Y axes.
Make one last group from all the shapes.
Congratulations! Your chess pawn is now ready for printing!! Continue to the next step.

Step 6: Printing Your Pawn

All of the overhangs on this design have been made with 3D printing in mind. Because these overhangs are built at a 45° angle, you should not need support material.

Instructions

Drag out a Cone to the workplane and resize it to 14mm in diameter and 7mm high.
Rotate the cone about the Y Axis 180° so that it is pointing down.
Use the Align tool to center the cone to the pawn along the X and Y axes, and to the upper limit on the Z axis.
Drag out a sphere and resize it to 12mm in diameter.
Translate the sphere along the Z axis to 23mm above the workplane, and then use the Align tool to center the sphere to the pawn along the X and Y axes.
Make one last group from all the shapes.
Congratulations! Your chess pawn is now ready for printing!! Continue to the next step.

In the next lesson you will learn to make a die!

Next Lesson:Numbered Die