kbricks construction system by Robert Kern

Description

Vision of a fully 3d printable construction system With the rise of 3d printers I got the impression that the time is right for a (toy) construction system that is specifically designed for 3d printing and that addresses some of the challenges I always had with commercial construction systems. Many of you probably remember such situations: you are building some cool new model but in the end some important bricks are missing so you cannot finish your work. And even if you can, it is still just a model and it tends to fall into pieces when you play with them. The kbricks constructions system A few months ago I first presented kbricks (pronounced "kay-bricks"), a fully 3d-printable open source construction system. With kbricks you will never run out of parts because you can simply print missing parts yourself. And thanks to stable connections your models won't fall into pieces even if you give them to a (not too young) child. I have already constructed a tractor, a racing car, a forklift, a tipper truck, and other models. kbricks has beed downloaded by thousands of users on Thingiverse.com and several prints of the models have been published there. Stable connections thanks to orthogonal connectors There are three fundamental types of parts that make up the kbricks construction system: cubes, plates, and beams. Parts are connected by two types of connectors: slide connectors and pegs. The fundamental part is a 24 mm cube that has two orthogonal notches on each surface. Using…