R2-D2 Snowflake

thingiverse

I embarked on a weekend project, but it quickly escalated into something much bigger. Since I stumbled upon this contest, I've been immersed in BlocksCAD for days. Initially, I aimed to create a simple shaped snowflake, followed by a more customized R2-D2 snowflake. However, as I delved deeper, I thought, why not add even more? The center symbols rotate as a group, while the smaller one spins independently. Here's a video of my snowflake in action: https://youtu.be/QhaKaAw_m2Q You can also check it out on BlocksCAD here: https://www.blockscad3d.com/community/projects/72980 I created an R2-D2 Snowflake featuring the Galactic Federation Symbols and a Rebel Alliance Symbol at its center. I utilized a substantial amount of blocks and hours to bring this concept to life. I started with R2-D2, as it was my initial idea. All my shapes were constructed using cubes from the beginning, from the body to the head, I simply removed pieces repeatedly to form a rounded shape. I realized that watching all the BlocksCAD videos would give me a deeper understanding of the program (Which I'm glad I did) and discovered that I could create rounded cubes using the union block. From there, I went on to create R2-D2. At first, my code was a single long sequence of blocks, but the video taught me more about modules and how to organize and separate my code. I asked my high school teacher to print it out for me and have images of the print. I have some images of my snowflake printer. It's not perfect, there are some strings and maybe needs a little calibration. Along with my print pictures, my code images show different groups of modules grouped together to form parts of the snowflake. Code Image 1: This is the main control system where I can scale the object as well as change the number of sides for all my circular shapes. My uploaded file is set to 100 sides for more accuracy. Image 2: Contains a lot of removal for the main body to cut out all of R2-D2's pieces. Where I first began making long cylindrical rectangles instead of just rectangles. There are many Set Ops used, plus unions. Image 3: This is the head, it took some time to make the rounded, triangle-like rectangles because they were a little different and making sure every piece lined up took some time. Image 4: The Galactic Federation may have been the most challenging part of this project. I needed to use two loops in order to get this to work. At first, I wasn't sure what to put in the center of my snowflake so from here on out I used a test space/project area in order to test out what I should design and how to implement it before actually placing it in my main project. Afterwards, I had to go back and implement yet another symbol and the spinning system. Image 5: The Rebel Alliance also took me some time to make, although after the Galactic Federation symbol, things became easier. I wasn't sure how to make an oval so I used a flattened cylinder in order to form it and just extended it. Image 6: This is the bars for the spinning system and the base circle. I had to make a few test prints with a little cube to make sure it would spin and found that these dimensions were perfect. The rest of the pictures are images of the final design. The files are all with sides of 100 for the highest accuracy. Thanks for checking out my snowflake! If you have any questions, let me know.