Lattice marble maze

prusaprinters

This marble maze is a 3d maze where the marble can travel along each axis in a cubic lattice.It is not especially a dexterity challenge as the marble can be easily moved step by step to discrete positions, on the other hand having a 3d space makes path reasoning more difficult, since the cube needs to be rotated for the marble to move. A small 3x3x3 maze is thus already quite challenging.In its primary version, the “walls” of the maze are only materialized by having a square shaped hole instead of a circular shaped one (and a sphere cannot go through a square, as you may guess). An somehow easier version has solid walls, except the outermost ones so you can still see the inside. The possible paths are more visible this ways.The OpenSCAD design is generic, other mazes (possibly larger) can be generated by changing the tree of paths, and a different marble size can be used by adjusting the pitch variable (current value is for a 16mm diameter marble). PrintingThis can be printed flat on the print bed without any support (the bridges and overhangs are not too difficult to prints). 0.15mm layer height gives good results. Pay attention to stringing as the cleaning can be time-consuming.Another option is to print the model on one of its corners, which will not require bridging (but will still yield some steep overhangs). Some supports should be used in this case, customizing the settings to support only the three “bottom” edges of the cube. UpgradeI thought that a maze path would not fully benefit of being in three dimensions if it didn't have a knot. This is now fixed in this new even more challenging 4x4x4 puzzle, which should keep your kids busy for days !