Description of project
The projects end goal is to be a Minecraft character with a pickaxe continually hitting or close to hitting a rock. The character will be centered on a wooden board with a wire attached to his arm. Two planks attached to the side of the base plank form part of a box. The vertical planks have a dowel freely spinning through 2 drilled holes in the side planks. Popsicle sticks are attached to the dowel to create room for the wire to go back and forth. A fan base with acrylic blades is attacked to the end of the dowel.
Step by step process
- 3D model a Minecraft character holding a pickaxe (hand done or use an addon in blender called MCprep)
- 3D model fan base with a center hole the width of your dowel
- Print the models
- Create a wooden base (can be any length, but make sure the width is less long than your dowel)
- Add side planks with an equal length and a Hight of about 7/8 your width
- Drill hole in top corner of side blanks slightly larger than your dowel
- Bend a wire with a circle at the end to slide onto the dowel
- Cut popsicle in half and separate your dowel in 2 pieces
- Connect your dowels using cut popsicle sticks (try to have the furthest stick be about an inch from the dowel)
- Add washers so the dowel won’t shift much from side to side
- Attach 3D printed fan blade hub
- Attach character with a loosely attached arm in the center of the plank (hot glue works well)
- Attach wire to loosely attached arm (hot glue can work for this)
- Use a laser cutter to print fan blades to add to your hub
- Securely attach fan blades to hub
- Decorate however you want. (I added dirt to make it look less like straight wood)
- Finally place a rock in front of your character and watch him mine (If there is no wind use a hair dryer)
Pictures
Materials
- Dirt
- Metal close hanger
- Attachment method (hot glue, nail gun, drill/hammer/screwdriver)
- 3D printer + filament
- Computer with blender/tinker CAD
- Wood
- Acrylic
- Dowels
- Popsicle sticks
Purpose
The purpose of this project is to understand/figure out the mechanism in which wind can spin a blade and powers some object. I personally, as an avid Minecraft player, chose to create a Minecraft player mining. I did this because I thought it would be an interesting and challenging project. My “done” is when the guy consistently mines solely with the power of wind in some shape or form.
Other notes if anyone tries this
The mechanism with popsicles sticks does work very well, but there are other ways to do this. I attempted to use a wire and arc it across the dowels, but hot glue and tape wouldn’t hold the wire to the dowel and the wire kept bending.
Another issue I ran into during this project was getting a free spinning arm. I would have a nail sticking out of the chest of the Minecraft man rather than having the nail in the arm. This helps the arm not fall out and keep it free spinning.
If I was to make a V2
The only things I would change
- Print all segments of the guy separately do I could color them individually
- Either take off a lot of the side boards or turn it into a ravine
- More decoration
- Redo some fan blades because it is slightly off balanced
C.D.E Blog -Eli Mather 