Related to: Hexagonal Rush Hour (online)

What!

I designed this all with FreeCAD (love!). It was a slight adjustment at first, but once I grasped the quirks of its constraint system (basically just: constrain as minimally as possible to avoid overconstraining), it was really wonderful to work with!

It’s really too bad they don’t have an official certification program…

How?

The design had to go through a couple of iterations, at first to get it working at all and then to optimize the feel. A significant thing I learned is illustrated in the following image:

A hexagonal grid has these two dimensions, which are related but distinct: $(1)$ between the centers of the hexagons and $(2)$ between the “files” of hexagons. On a square grid they would be identical, so I struggled a little to mentally separate them. I messed it up a few times before getting everything right. Ultimately, for this project I set $(2)$ to be $15\text{mm}$, which meant $(1)$ needed to be $\frac{2}{\sqrt{3}} \cdot 15\text{mm} \approx 17.32\text{mm}$. Once I figured this out, everything went swimmingly!

Another thing I figured out, was the importance of minimizing the surfaces that are in contact between moving parts (in this case, the boats and the knobs of the board). I made the following change:

Before this change, the pieces would stick and bind against eachother, resulting in a frustrating tactile experience. Afterwards, the pieces move freely enough that you can move one piece into another and easily push both in one motion. Regardless of actually setting up and solving puzzles, this change made the motion buttery smooth and really satisfying to stim with!!

For the actual printing, I absolutely FELL IN LOVE with the process of 3d printing. I love sitting next to a printer as it sings its little fabrication song.. I dream of a public workspace that has an area for 3d printers to fill the space with that beautiful music.