Milkshake Straw construction pieces

thingiverse

I settled on ball-and-socket hubs so my grandson can craft geometric shapes from milkshake straws with a diameter of about 1cm. Printing each piece takes only 10 to 15 minutes, so I included array files to minimize setup and resetting during printing. To avoid deforming the "hubs" when removing them from the printer, I let them cool down for a while, which is where the arrays come in - they help complete more tasks and allow the hubs to solidify before removal. The "ball" parts can be easily inserted into the "hub" parts with some effort, so it's best to pre-assemble the hubs with the ball parts. The kids can then create shapes by adjusting the angles and placing the straws accordingly. For tetrahedron (d4), cube (d6) or dodecahedron (d12) use "hub 3" for the axes, while for octahedron (d8) use "hub 4". I didn't create a "hub 5" which would be needed for icosahedron / d20, but I included the FreeCAD file in case you want to try that yourself.