Fidget Spinner Tutorial

Coding an OpenSCAD Fidget

This Thing is a Fidget Spinner tutorial. I hate the idea of adding yet another fidget spinner. But then I thought the popularity of this thing may work to get some into coding.

I'm not posting the SCAD file here because I want those interested to actually code this not copy.

OpenSCAD - Code a Fidget Tutorial

Educationally Speaking this has it all:

Coding

Loopings
Module calls
*Variables

Modelling

  • scaling
  • transform
  • hull
  • difference

Physics

  • friction
  • gyroscopic action
  • centrifugal forces
  • RPMs

Poetry

One friend suggested writing poetry about fidgets.

Please comment if you have other ideas. I get excited about all the educational value this pesky fad may have.

UPDATE: To make a version that uses Bearings as weights make the following changes:

Change Line 6 to: WEIGHT_SIZE=11;
Change Line 6 to: WEIGHT_FACES=25;

Added 4 units to radius in line 25, so it reads:

translate ([ARM_DISTANCE,0,0]) cylinder( r=CENTER_BEARING_SIZE/2 + 4, h=8, center=true );

Adjusted X scale in line 31 to 1.25

I have uploaded a new version for those not inclined to typing.