Paper Fidget Spinner Made With Silhouette

You want to design a awesome fidget spinner right? Well then why not 3D print? However there are a few... complications. First you don't have the $300 it takes to buy your own printer not to mention the cost of filament so you use a service bureau. Well these guys are pricey and you realize that after a while of using a bureau you would have dished out enough cash to have bought your own printer anyway so you search for an alternative. The last option is library and while they may be cheep they have one critical issue, wait time. At the time of this writing I'm still waiting for my designs to be printed and I've waited over a month. So if you don't have the money you're stuck. So what do you do when you find a problem you cant solve? You get around it and thats exactly I did. It just so happens that I had a silhouette collecting dust in my basement so pulled that baby out and got to work. This instructable shows you how to design and print a fidget spinner made out of layers of paper. Now there are a few pros to using a silhouette instead of a 3D printer. First you can get sharp and drastic angles that you can't get in 3D printing without supports. Second the material, card stalk, is cheap. Third each layer of paper can be colored differently and uniquely allowing for some awesome looks to your spinner. However, as with everything, there are a few cons. First paper's not water proof so do go fidgeting in the rain. Second it can take a while for the glue to dry depending on what kind of glue you get. Lastly paper isn't as durable as plastic in the long run. Oh you might also be wondering about the weight because, you know, paper is notoriously light but just like a 3D printed fidget spinner you need to add some wight. Since this instructable is just a demonstration I didn't bother adding weight but it can be easily done. Alright you ready to learn how to make your own? Then read on.

Things You Will Need:

Materials:

1. Cardstock: you could use just normal thin printer paper but would take alot longer to finish thus I recommend card stock. Also the cardstock's stiffness really helps too.

2. Glue: for the demonstration above I used super glue because its strong and dry's fast but elmer's glue works way better.

Tools:

1. Silhouette: if you don't know what a silhouette is then let me help you out. A silhouette is a device that precisely cuts paper. I'm using a silhouette portrait but it doesn't mater what model of cutter you use as long as it cuts designs bigger than 4 in. By the way your paper cutter doesn't have to be a silhouette for this to work but all the technique I use will be directed toward someone with a silhouette.

2. Silhouette Studio: this is the CAD software that is required for designing for your silhouette.

3. Sharpie: (optional) anything that you can use to color your spinner fits in this category.

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Step 1: Step 1: Sizeing

Before we get started lets talk about size. Because we are designing a fidget spinner we have to be able to, you know, fidget with it. Thus I printed out some circles with their diameter in inches labeled via cut out. The first picture shows me holding the circle with a diameter of 4 inches. I think this is the very biggest you can make a fidget spinner and still have it function properly and as you can see it just barely avoided hitting my hand. I didn't feel comfortable holding the spinner until I reached 3.7 inches Personally I think 3.5 inches is the sweet spot but if you need just a bit of extra space then you can push the limit to 3.75 in. Of corse all this is relative to the size of your hand so use at your own discretion. Ok so we've got our size limit so lets move on to the next step.

Step 2: Step 2: Basic Design

The first thing you need to do is create a border. You can do this by going to the ellipse tab on the far left side and clicking it. Next click some where on your silhouette workspace and hold the shift key on your computer. This makes the ellipse a perfect circle. Once the length of the circle is 3.5 inches then click. Next you need to click the slect tab at the top left corner and select your circle by clicking on it. Now locate the aline tab on the top bar near the right side and click it. It should cause a window to pop up. At the bottom of that window is a center to page option that you need to apply. Once your big circle is centered then create a little circle .866 in in diameter using the same techniques you used for the big circle. Center this one too. This circle is the size of your average baring but if you do have a unique baring then you just need to make little circle the diameter of your unique baring. once both circles are centered you should have two circles that look like the ones in the second picture.

Step 3: Step 3: Your Personal Design

Now because you want your fidget spinner to be balanced I recommend a symmetrical design however this is totally up to you. Now if you make a symmetrical design you need to discover the designs root. In other words the piece you replicate over and over again to make your fidget spinner. Next sketch the root of your design using the tabs on the left side of the page. My design root up close looks like the first picture. Now that you've done that you just need to replicate the root allot and you can do that using the replicate tab in the top bar near the right side. You may also need to rotate the design which you can do using the rotate tab near the align tab. You can select multiple lines or sketches by clicking and dragging over the pieces you want to select so you can move sketches as a group. Your finished design should fit within the big circle and not cut into the little circle as demonstrated in picture 3. Now remember all the lines you make are where the silhouette will cut. Lastly delete the outside circle by selecting it and then pressing the delate key on your computer. Now you can group select the entire design and replicate it to best maximize you paper like I did in picture 5. Also if you want to get a gradual slope like I did in my design then take your original design and put it off the page. Next replicate it and use the scale tab in the top right to shrink your replicated design by 5% increments. Don't forget to enlarge your small circle by 5% for every 5% you shrink the outside by. You may need to occasionally enlarge the internal circle by an extra present. If you chose to do that you should have something like picture 6.

Step 4: Step 4: Actualizing

The last step is to turn your design into something real. First make all your cut outs and build your fidget spinner without glueing it together like in picture 1. If you like what you see then glue them together and you can even add a bit of design on each sheet. I decided to alternate black and white for each piece of paper. Once their all glued together your spinner should look something like picture 5. Lastly shove your baring into the center hole and if you want to glue it in place. There you go! you just completed your paper fidget spinner! I would love it if you would send me a pic of your finished project and drop me a comment below. Thanks for reading this instructable and don't forget to vote for me!