July 10, 2020
Description
I like brain teasers and especially burr puzzles since my childhood. Years ago I made the burr of Philippe Dubois from wood and enjoyed a 24-hour solving session. When I obtained my 3D printer, one of my first designs was a FreeCAD version of the same (included here).
Now I created a six-piece burr "engine" in OpenSCAD. It accepts a matrix of zeroes and ones where a '0' represents an empty position in the 3D model. So besides the included two designs you may add your own description for a different puzzle. (Disclaimer: This is not a "generator", you should have a valid puzzle description to create a new STL...)
Philippe Dubois (difficulty: 6.1) and Bill Cutler's "Buffling" Burr (difficulty: 5) are included. (You just need to uncomment one and comment the other one to switch in the scad file) I found the latter much easier to solve (it took me 15 min), anyway it was fun to solve it, as well.
Bill's Buffling Burr needs support for one piece. The other one from my sets print well without support. Be careful with your new designs about support...
I used 7 and 6 for unit size. It gives 141442 and 121236 mm pieces accordingly. You may also use different colours for different sets to not mix them afterwards.
I won't include the solutions here, it is much more fun to find it out by yourselves. But they are available on the web for the impatient playeI like brain teasers and especially burr puzzles since my childhood. Years ago I made the burr of Philippe Dubois from wood and enjoyed a 24-hour solving session. When I obtained my 3D printer, one of my first designs was a FreeCAD version of the same (included here).
Now I created a six-piece burr "engine" in OpenSCAD. It accepts a matrix of zeroes and ones where a '0' represents an empty position in the 3D model. So besides the included two designs you may add your own description for a different puzzle. (Disclaimer: This is not a "generator", you should have a valid puzzle description to create a new STL...)
Philippe Dubois (difficulty: 6.1) and Bill Cutler's "Buffling" Burr (difficulty: 5) are included. (You just need to uncomment one and comment the other one to switch in the scad file) I found the latter much easier to solve (it took me 15 min), anyway it was fun to solve it, as well.
Bill's Buffling Burr needs support for one piece. The other one from my sets print well without support. Be careful with your new designs about support...
I used 7 and 6 for unit size. It gives 141442 and 121236 mm pieces accordingly. You may also use different colours for different sets to not mix them afterwards.
I won't include the solutions here, it is much more fun to find it out by yourselves. But they are available on the web for the impatient players.
Some useful links on burr puzzles:
https://www.craftsmanspace.com/free-projects/six-piece-burr-puzzles.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_puzzle
https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/JimPuzzles/BURR/3PieceTrickSegerblom/IbmPage.pdf
rs.
Some useful links on burr puzzles:
https://www.craftsmanspace.com/free-projects/six-piece-burr-puzzles.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_puzzle
https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/JimPuzzles/BURR/3PieceTrickSegerblom/IbmPage.pdf
Printer brand:
Prusa
Printer:
i3 MK2S
Rafts: No
Supports: Yes
Resolution: 0.15mm
Infill: 20%
Filament_brand: any
Filament_color: wood, gray or any
Filament_material: PLA
Notes:
Dubois' prints without support, Bill Cutler's needs support for the last piece. Other designs may need it, depending on the geometry. Also, be aware that Bill's last piece is non-manifold when exporting it. (There are two unit cubes touching by a common edge.) But the slicer should repair it automatically. I used Prusa Slic3r, no extra steps, no issues, just a warning message about the successful repair.
Post-Printing
Some minor cleanup may be needed on the edges. Also, the support will need to be removed where applied. Usually the pieces fit well if made of PLA. I simply rub them together by the fitting sides and pits a couple of times and they fit and assemble well.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Share Alike