Engineering Summative, Quarter One

Overview

This project involved creating a manufacturing a prototype of a wooden puzzle cube, as well as recreating the design in Onshape.

Model

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Problem Statement

A local office furniture manufacturing company throws away tens of thousands of scrap ¾” hardwood cubes that result from its furniture construction processes. The material is expensive, and the scrap represents a sizeable loss of profit.

Design Statement

Fine Office Furniture, Inc. would like to return value to its waste product by using it as the raw material for desktop novelty items that will be sold on the showroom floor. Design, build, test, document, and present a three-dimensional puzzle system that is made from the scrap hardwood cubes. The puzzle system must provide an appropriate degree of challenge to a person who is three years of age or older.

Criteria

1. The puzzle must be fabricated from 27 – ¾”hardwood cubes.
2. The puzzle system must contain exactly five puzzle pieces.
3. Each individual puzzle piece must consist of at least four, but no more than six hardwood cubes that are permanently attached to each other.
4. No two puzzle pieces can be the same.
5. The five puzzle pieces must assemble to form a 2 ¼” cube.
6. Some puzzle parts should interlock.

Brainstorming

These were the brainstorming routes I took. I mostly had the puzzle figured out, so I made a couple other blocks in order to finish the puzzle.

The design on the right is the one I ultimately went with, the one on the left was one just to get my mind going on the project.

Puzzle Cube Components

Each image represents one of the five puzzle pieces.

Block1

Block2

Block3

Block4

Block5

Onshape Link: