Dragonfly Toy With Tinkercad Tutorial!

This is one of those super simple but super fun little toys that were already old fashioned when I was a kid!

I love these designs because I think the genius really is in the simplicity of them - a lot of these toys are traditionally made from wood but I've been having a lot of fun trying to recreate a few old toys for 3D printing lately and these spinners seemed like a great candidate for a quick project!

In total you can print and build one of these and have it ready to play with in around 1 - 1.5 hours!

The first few steps will cover the design of this in Tinkercad but my STLs are available here on Thangs for free so feel free to grab those and jump ahead to the print step if you don't want to design it yourself! :)

3D printer

Filament

Glue - I used superglue

First thing we'll work on is the propeller!
It's worth saying now that this isn't a particularly precise process!!
Our designs can definitely just be sisters, rather than twins!

I'll give measurements where it matters and anywhere where there aren't measurements given, I will have just been working by eye and it's fine for you to do the same :)

I'll also pop a link to the Tinkercad here - I know it can be tricky to follow pics sometimes so feel free to play around with my design if it helps!

• Add a cylinder to the work plane - mine was 80mm long by 15mm wide and 2.5mm tall - pic 1
• Rotate the cylinder by 30 degrees as shown - pic 2
• This is one of those play it by eye steps - Add a square hole to the work plane and you will need to rotate and then stretch the shape so that when you group the 2 objects, the propeller is sloped across one side - you're aiming for pic 3 here
• Add another square hole and again rotate and stretch to cut so that only the end of the propeller will be sloped and getting narrower towards the end when you group the 2 objects - you're aiming for pic 4 this time
• Group everything if you haven't already and you should have something like pic 5

Now all we need to do is stick 2 propellers together and make a stick - it sounds like a lot but we've done the hard work already!

First we need a mirrored version of the existing propeller!

• Start by making a duplicate of the propeller blade you already made
• Hit the 'M' key on your keyboard to bring up the mirror tool (you should see some arrows on the screen like pic 1)
• with a top-down view, mirror the piece in both directions (x and y axis) - you should now have something like pic 2

Next we need to attach the 2 propellers together

• Start with a cylinder - I made mine 7 x 7 x 6 (pic 3)
• Next make a cylindrical hole - mine is 4.5 x 4.5 x 6 (pic 4)
• Position the hole in the centre of the cylinder with a propeller blade on either side as shown in pic 5
• Finally group all of the objects together and you should have something that resembles pic 6

Last step is just to make the stick so you can spin it!

• Very simple, just make a long, thin cylinder - mine was 4 x 4 x 155
  • This gave quite a large tolerance to ensure it would fit into the hoe in the propeller - if you know your printer is more or less accurate then you may want to adjust that

That's it! just export your shapes as stls and we're ready to print!

We're ready to print! (In case you had any trouble with the design, my files are available for free from Thangs here so feel free to grab those!)

As always, I'm not going to share gcode or slicer profiles etc. as I don't want to be responsible for any damage to your printer etc.

This is a fairly straightforward print but a few tips:

• You will need to print with supports from build plate
• You will want to keep it nice and light - I'd suggest 2 walls/perimeters and 10% infill but adjust for your printer/material
• Some areas of the model will be very thin because of the slope of the propeller blades - I used adaptive layers to ensure they printed but don't worry too much as it'll still be perfectly useable even if it cuts off the thinnest areas in the slicer

Fab, so you should have 2 printed parts at this point: the propeller and the stick

First thing to do is remove the supports!

These should come away quite easily but if you find the surface is a little rough underneath them then a quick bit of sanding should sort that out

Next we need to assemble it!

It's a pretty simple matter of just passing the stick through the hole in the propeller and gluing it in place!

I recommend just using blue tack or tape first time just to make sure you have it the right way around before gluing but I have included pics from several angles to help you ensure you get it the right way up.

When you spin the stick between your hands, you should feel air blowing down onto your hands rather than upwards :)

All you need to do to make your spinner fly is roll it between your hands and release it!

My clips are just me and my partner playing a little cautiously with it indoors as that was the easiest way to grab a clip of it in action but this is definitely an outside toy!

You can get some really good height out of it with a good spin, especially if it catches the wind!!

I hope you enjoyed this Instructable!

I have a few other 3D printing based ibles including a few other toys if this is your kind of thing :)