Milkshake Straw construction pieces

thingiverse

I decided on ball-and-socket hubs so my grandson can make geometric shapes from milkshake straws (about 1cm ID). Since printing each piece is only 10 to 15 minutes, I included array files so there isn't as much setup and resetting during printing. I also had to let the "hubs" cool down for a while so I wouldn't deform them trying to remove them from the printer, so the arrays should help get more done and allow them to cool a bit and solidify before removing. The "ball" parts can be squeezed into the "hub" parts with a little (big person) effort, so you should pre-assemble the hubs with the ball parts. The kids can then make shapes by adjusting the angles and putting the straws on. For tetrahedron (d4), cube (d6) or dodecahedron (d12) use the "hub 3" for the axes, and for octahedron (d8) use the "hub4". I didn't make a "hub5" (which would be needed for icosahedron / d20), but I included the FreeCAD file in case you want to try that yourself.