DartStar

thingiverse

This print lets you bring your foam dart throwing stars to life and safely fulfill your childhood dreams of being a shuriken throwing ninja. I 3D-print the stars as a sturdy tower. Once printed, I carefully clean them up, taking advantage of the barbs and rough edges that help grip the foam darts perfectly. They fit standard size darts with either the blunt end or a suction cup, requiring only a gentle wiggle to secure them in place. With careful attention to detail, you can rest assured that the darts won't come off accidentally. I purchased bulk lots of darts at an affordable price online, keeping the cost per dartstar remarkably low ($2-3). To test their safety and effectiveness, I had people throw them at my face, discovering they hit softer than most dart guns. Kids have played roughly with them for months without incident, breaking only one star after it lost an arm due to excessive wear. Even then, the break was clean and protected by other darts. Occasionally, some stars stick to windows when thrown, but most bounce off effortlessly. The suction ends on standard darts aren't strong enough to keep them attached for long. I print the stars in PLA with a layer height of 0.12mm, walls of 0.8mm, and 25% infill at 1:1 scale to ensure the dart fits snugly inside. I print them with a 30-line brim at 200 degrees on a 60-degree bed. A single star takes about an hour to print, using approximately 5g or 2m of filament. Printing a 20-star tower requires around 20 hours. If you want to make the stars stronger, you could increase the infill, but this would also add weight, so I wouldn't recommend it.