Mirror and Laser Holders for Science Olympiad

thingiverse

My daughter demanded some mirrors and a laser to hone her skills with for the Science Olympiad optics event. I fabricated 5 mirror holders and 1 laser holder in ABS to meet her needs. You could probably adapt these designs to various optics purposes. For the mirrors, I ordered these 50mm x 50 mm mirrors (https://www.edmundoptics.com/optics/optical-mirrors/flat-mirrors/50.8-x-50.8mm-4-6lambda-mirror/), which claimed to be first surface mirrors but turned out not to be. That's probably okay for SciOly practice. We secured the mirrors to the mounts with double stick tape, though there is a bottom lip for the mirror to rest on. Since ABS can warp slightly, the lip may or may not hold the mirror square to the surface it rests on (sigh). The laser was a generic laser pointer we bought from Office Depot. The laser barrel was about 14mm in diameter, with an on light and on button that required a 0.5 mm clearance. I used this to create a sort of "switch" for the laser. The hole for the laser pointer looks more like a keyway, with a small 1mm or so notch at the bottom. When installing the laser pointer, orient the switch and on light so they can go through the notch. Push the on light through, but leave the laser pointer button in the notch. This is the laser "off" state. When you want to turn it on, just rotate the laser so the switch comes out of the notch, and then the mount will hold it down in the "on" state. You'll probably need to print with support, and clean up the hole/keyway with a set of files to get the fit to work well. You may need to modify the part for whatever laser pointer you have. I've included the CAD files in the FreeCAD format. I know that's not standard, but it's FOSS and works on many platforms.