kbricks construction system

myminifactory

Human: Vision of a fully 3D printable construction system. With the rise of 3D printers, I realized that the time is right for a (toy) construction system specifically designed for 3D printing and addressing some challenges with commercial construction systems. Many people probably remember such situations: you are building a cool new model but in the end some important pieces are missing so you cannot finish your work. And even if you can, it is still just a model that tends to fall into pieces when you play with them. The KBricks Construction System A few months ago I first presented KBricks (pronounced "Kay-Bricks"), a fully 3D-printable open-source construction system. With KBricks you will never run out of parts because you can simply print missing parts yourself. And thanks to stable connections your models won't fall into pieces even if you give them to a (not too young) child. I have already constructed a tractor, a racing car, a forklift, a tipper truck, and other models. KBricks has been downloaded by thousands of users on Thingiverse.com and several prints of the models have been published there. Stable Connections Thanks to Orthogonal Connectors There are three fundamental types of parts that make up the KBricks construction system: cubes, plates, and beams. Parts are connected by two types of connectors: slide connectors and pegs. The fundamental part is a 24 mm cube with two orthogonal notches on each surface. Using slide connectors these notches can be connected to plates or other cubes resulting in a stable connection of the two parts. Furthermore, there are wheels, gears, axles, steerings, and icing parts which make the models look nice. Building KBricks Models KBricks makes it easy to build your own models. Detailed printing instructions and construction manuals are available on GitHub. This video shows how to get started with KBricks. References KBricks was designed using the OpenSCAD 3D CAD modeler. KBricks gears use the Gears Library for OpenSCAD published by Joerg Janssen on Thingiverse.com. Update: Added parts and pictures of new KBricks figure