For my niece this year I am planning on making a set of wooden blocks with custom laser cut designs on all the sides of the blocks. 36 blocks in total with 216 faces
I found this post from another hacker that did a similar project with geek content
http://upnotnorth.net/projects/alphabet-blocks/
This one from a designer
I found a few places online where I can order wooden blocks. I am looking for prefinished blocks because I don’t want to spent my entire winter break sanding blocks.
- Wood Blocks and Drilled Wooden Cubes | Bear Woods Canada (Canadain)
- Woodworking Materials - Blocks - Blocks & Cubes - Craftparts.com
Do you know of a local place where I could get plain wooden blocks?
Each side of the blocks will have a different theme.
Side 1 This is the index for the other sides.
Upper case letters, and 0-9 numbers
A-Z, 0-9
Side 2
A puzzle map of the world with longitude and latitude lines and borders, a few sea monsters to fill in the ocean blocks.
Side 3
Animals that can spelled with the remaining blocks. Words with double of the same letter won’t work, For example a Cat, needs C, A, T and works, Koala or Jaguar both need two “A” and won’t work. Vulture has two “U” and won’t work.
I am struggling to find animals for some of the letters, please feel free to suggest some. I can’t find an animal that starts with X that meets the above rules.
I plan to use the vectors from http://thenounproject.com/ to make the images.
A = Ant
B = Bat
C = Cat
D = Dog
E = Emu
F = Fox
G = Goat
H = Horse
I =
J = Jaybird
K = King Crab
L = Lion
M = Moth
N = Newt
O = Oyster
P = Pig
Q = Owl
R = Rat
S = Snake
T = Tiger
U =
V = Vole
W = Wolf
X =
Y = Yak
Z = Zebra
0 = Child’s name - (Note there is no roman numeral for Zero)
1 = I
2 = II
3 = III
4 = IV
5 = V
6 = VI
7 = VII
8 = VIII
9 = IX
Side 4
Geek side.
A lot of these are taken from http://upnotnorth.net/projects/alphabet-blocks/
A = Alice (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)
B = Boba Fett
C = Cthulhu
D = Darth Vader
E = Enterprise NCC-1701
F =
G = Green lantern symbol
H =
I = Invader
J =
K = Koopa
L =
M =
N = NASA
O =
P = Pac-man
Q = Question block
R = Resistor
S = S is for Spock
T =
U =
V =
W =
X =
Y =
Z = is for Zoidberg
0 = 007
1 =
2 =
3 =
4 =
5 =
6 =
7 =
8 =
9 =
Side 5
Math, little geek kids like math, right?.
It is nice if the letters match up with the symbol but not required.
A = Arc
B = Bell Curve
C = Cube (Line drawing of a 3 dimensional cube)
D =
E = MC^2
F = Frustum
G = Gradient
H = Helix
I =
J =
K = Koch snowflake
L = Line - A simple line with two points at either end.
M =
N = Newton F = ( {ML} / T^2)
O =
P = Paralell
Q =
R = Ohm’s law triangle V = I * R
S =
T = Tangent
U =
V =
W = Watt ( W = J / S )
X = This will have the X, Y, Z axis on the cube its self with a grid pattern on this face.
Y =
Z =
0 = Child’s birthday
1 = Circle
2 = Digon
3 = Triangle
4 = Square
5 = Pentagon
6 = Hexagon
7 = Heptagon
8 = Octagon
9 = Nonagon
Side 6
??? I am open to suggestions. ???
Once the design files are done, they will be uploaded to my Github account for anyone else to use if they like. Citation will be provided for all the images that come from The Noun project. Credit for anyone that suggests a image for one of the faces.
Please feel free to make suggestions on the different faces of these cubes.
I will be updating this post as I pick new elements for each face.
