Stegosaurus Puzzle

I was asked to make a small scale fossil puzzle for the kids to have a go at on our Mary Anning fossil hunting sessions.(she of "she sells sea shells on the sea shore" fame).

I needed to have multiple copies and they had to be easily transportable.

We already have a T Rex puzzle so I decided to go for a herbivore, kids all know the stegosaurus so the search for data began.

Equipment used:

Laser engraver

3D printer

Bandsaw

Jigsaw

3mm MDF

RTV Silicon rubber

Casting resin

PLA plastic for 3D printer

PVA adhesive

Copydex adhesive

Superglue

I search the web for an image of a stegosaurus fossil and found a free image of a number of dinosaur fossils and there amongst them was my starting point.

After re-digitising the picture I drew a surround and worked out the puzzle parts and scaled it to fit A4 paper. Once made this would give a puzzle that can easily be carried by our walk guides until needed.

As I needed to be able to make a number of these I decided to make a buck from which a silicon rubber mould would be produced. The bones would be 3D printed and the background would be made from 3mm MDF.

Once I had drawn all the puzzle parts I laser engraved them onto a sheet of MDF

The MDF base was then cut out on my band saw, once all the parts were cut I pushed them together drew around the outside and cut the outer shape in more MDF, this will make the base 6mm thick once it is all stuck together.

At this point I needed some bones, I used Tinkercad to make a set of 3D bones in 4 files to ensure they would fit on my 3D printer I made the bones in 3 layers to give them some depth and texture.

3D printer is shown printing the spine and ribs.

Once all the bones were printed I laid them out on the base to check that everything would fit.

I taped a few of the pieces of the upper MDF layer to the base MDF layer and glued them together with PVA glue.

The bones were then cut to fit the separate parts of the puzzle, these were stuck down with thick superglue. This process continued until all the bones were fitted and all of the puzzle pieces were separated.

The puzzle pieces were painted and sealed with varnish. I made up a shallow box out of MDF offcuts, the puzzle pieces were stuck down inside with copydex adhesive ( this will seal under the pieces but allow them to be removed from the box without damage once the mould is cast).

I mixed up a batch of 2 part RTV silicon rubber and poured it into the box. Once it was set the puzzle and box were carefully pulled apart leaving its shape behind.

THe puzzles are cast in 2 part resin with some concrete colouring powder added to make it look more like stone.

This only takes a few minutes to set and once the parts are removed from the mould they just need any flash/overpoor cleaned off and they are ready to go!

Post script:-The Stegosauruses have now been used in a teaching session, a small group of kids took 5 minutes on average to put the puzzle together. That is just what we needed not too easy but not too time consuming