Bradley Checkers Board

Post date: Oct 11, 2017 6:22:54 PM

In the beginning, my initial idea for my checkers board was for the board to be made out of wood, the pieces to be 3D printed, and for there to be LED lights.  I started off with my project being twice as big as the final ended up being because I realized that the board was just going to be too big.  After I decided on the final dimensions, I printed out the board with its Cleveland theme with the laser cutter, and glued it in such a way that the top of the board only comes off for storage.  I then knew that I had to start making the 3D printed pieces, and these proved to be a difficult challenge.  On the 5th try, I finally printed the pieces the way I wanted them to be: they could stack on top of each other.  Throughout my various failed attempts, the pieces would have dimension issues that prevented them from stacking, and I even completely changed the design of them after the 2nd try.  The pieces took a while to print.

    After all of the pieces were printed, it was too late in the course for me to have my original idea of having there be LED lights in the board.  It took a class or two for me to figure out a new direction for the project, until I decided that I would create piece holders.  Like the pieces themselves, these took multiple prototypes until one finally worked.  I then used that design and printed it onto wood using the laser cutter.  Upon closer inspection though, I did not like the burn marks the laser cutter made, and I wanted to cover them up, leading to me spray painting them black.  The spray painting took the remainder of the course at this time, and I completed my project.  I was happy that I could keep my Cleveland roots in the project design, and it's cool to see that I actually made this using my knowledge from this course.

I plan on making a checkers board with a Cleveland theme.  The squares, when a piece is on it, I plan on designing so that they light up.  It will measure 20" (width) x 20" (length) by 4" (hight) without the tabs.  With tabs, the length and width is 21" and the height is the same.  The checkers board will be laser cut using 1/8" wood.  The pieces will be printed using the 3D printer.

This is a cardboard prototype of the checkers board.  I made it half the size, and decided that I liked that better than the original 21" x 21" x 4".  The final project dimensions will now be 11.5" x 11.5" x 2.5".  I also realized here that the tabs that are used to lock the pieces together were to large, so they stuck out.  I the changed the tab dimensions to now have a "width" of sticking out of 1/8 of an inch.  The final inkscape svg and pdf documents are now uploaded to the page.

After 2 classes of laser cutting and gluing, the wooden game board is complete.  Keeping it with the Cleveland theme, I added signature Cleveland phrases to the sides and bottom of the board through etching on the laser cutter.  The tabs, in some places, were looser than what they were designed to be, but others were perfect.  I decided to use tacky glue to make up for the minimal space between the ones which were loose, and they are settled in.  I decided not to glue the top part, so the hollow inside can be used for storing pieces and also space for when I need to put in the LED lights in.  I have decided that I am going to drill holes along the outside edge of the perimeter of the game board and the edge of the entire thing (kind of like the edge between the fairway and the green in golf for an analogy) to place the LED's.  I don't think pressure-sensitive LED's are feasible with the time remaining.  Next class I will begin to 3D print the pieces.

Above are the first 4 designs I came up with for the pieces, which all failed.  The first design is in the far left picture (right one), and there was a gap between the logo and the bottom part of the piece, along with the fact that the pieces couldn't stack.  The second design is also in the far left picture (left one) and I ended fixing the gap, but not the fact that they couldn't stack.  After thinking about the design for a little bit, I switched gears to a completely different design for my third attempt.  The new design has a large circle at the bottom with a hole on the bottom for stacking, along with another smaller circle on top of the larger circle, with this smaller circle having the logo as a negative.  The problem with the third attempt was that they couldn't stack, and the logo was well defined.  I then went on to try 4, where I made the logo more defined, but they still couldn't stack.

Featured below is the 5th and working design!  I fixed the problem of the pieces not stacking by making the bottom circle bigger, and the top circle the same dimensions as the 4th attempt.  They stack on top of each other flush, and I even found a setting for the bottom of the piece so that the netting doesn't sag, that way it looks nice and crisp.  I will begin to print the Cavs pieces next class with the same dimensions as the Indians final piece.  The Indians and Cavs piece designs are now attached at the bottom of the page.

Over the past couple of classes, I have successfully 3D printed the 16 Cavs pieces.  The next step is to determine what to do next, since there a lot of classes to go.

For the past week and a half, I have been working one designing piece holders.  On the left is the cardboard prototype of the piece holder, and took multiple tries of guessing and checking before it worked well.  In the middle, is the wood copy.  I decided to take off the top notches, instead making it smooth.  I also sanded the corners of the holders so that they are not sharp.  Afterwards, I decided that I would spray paint the holders black, since the laser cutter leaves discoloration that does not look good in this instance.  I spray painted for 2 classes, until the wood could not be seen anywhere.  At the bottom of the page, the Inkscape files for the piece holders are there.

After a month and a half, the checkers board with 32 pieces along with 2 piece holders is complete.