Tensegrity Dice Tower

thingiverse

After creating my first tensegrity structure a few weeks ago, I started thinking about what practical uses these sorts of structures could be used for. Someone on Reddit suggested making a dice tower like this could be cool, so I decided to give it a try. The dice tower itself prints in four parts and then requires two pieces of string to hold it upright. The position of the knots on the string is crucial, so I created a tool for tying the knots correctly and repeatably, which I've included here. An image showing the positions of the knots is also attached. These lengths create the correct tension for my print, but if you're using more brittle or flexible PLA, you may need to adjust accordingly. I recommend starting in the middle and working out from there, but there's no right or wrong way of doing it. The tower itself is made up of three parts that fit snugly into a base piece. I printed mine with the 0.5mm gap and had to sand one of the sides down to fit, which led me to also include the base with a 1mm gap around the edges for anyone needing a bit more tolerance for their printer. There are also cut-outs for attaching string on the left and right side of the tower to better stabilize it. I didn't need this, but I imagine that over time, the PLA might creep, causing the tower to sag. This should add some extra stability and prevent the tower from slouching too much. I hope you all enjoy this, and I'm looking forward to seeing some makes posted! Fair warning: this was designed more with form than function in mind, so the dice sometimes get stuck in the tower - about 10% of the time with a standard 20-sided die.