Spherical Jigsaw Puzzle

thingiverse

I was pondering what a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle resembling a sphere would be like; specifically, one where the pieces form a thin shell, similar to the Wikipedia logo. As it turns out, someone here on Thingiverse has already created such a design. I began considering what happens if you increase the thickness of the pieces. If you do, you cannot simply cut along the edges of each piece with a virtual knife pointing at the sphere's center because you won't be able to insert or remove them. As I thought further, I realized that cutting the pieces in such a way that they can be inserted and removed would result in a jigsaw puzzle requiring a specific sequence for assembly. I found this concept rather intriguing and it made the puzzle more engaging. The outcome of these musings, along with the Python (Jupyter notebook) code, is provided below. Printing these components proves to be somewhat challenging. When printing something with a curved surface facing downwards, it often results in an unsatisfactory printed finish. I discovered that printing these pieces (with support structures) at a 45-degree angle, with the outer spherical surface on top, produced the best results.