A playful and challenging puzzle

Design Fellow, Fall 2014

Skills
SolidWorks
3D Printing
Laser Cutter
basic woodworking

How can we make a fun and professional gift for a visiting speaker?

While working as Design Fellow at the Thayer School of Engineering, I got a lot of interesting requests of projects to help with. When Professor Sol Diamond asked me to design and build a gift for a visiting speaker, I had no idea what form this small project would take. After both doing a bit of research on the speaker, Jennifer Healey, Ph. D., we did some brainstorming to think about what kind of a gift I should make. Professor Diamond loves puzzles, and it has been a tradition to give the Visionaries in Technology guest lecturers a puzzle geared to their interests and profession. We settled on a magnetic puzzle of cars and trucks, playing off Jennifer Healey's research and interest in transportation communication to reduce accidents.

The pieces fit in only a few ways on the board

Each piece has 1/8" diameter magnets in the base

After doing some test parts to see what size of magnets would be needed and how they would interact, I designed the base and the pieces in SoldiWorks. The cars are all 3D printed on a Stratasys Objet out of a clear print material, giving them a great look. The delrin base has a 6x6 grid of magnets held in from below with setscrews. This leaves the surface totally clear of any indication of where the magnets are, adding to the fun of the puzzle. The magnets are arranged randomly N or S facing up, and I made the pieces fit the orientation. If you try to put a piece in the wrong spot, it actually will get pushed away by the magnets. 

The matte sanded delrin "road" surface

The finished puzzle makes a great desk piece and is fun to play with