Propeller Toy

grabcad

This is a toy I designed to teach kids about engineering. It can be 3D printed on Stratasys printers with water soluble supports (because the handle and spinner are printed together and can't be assembled). I used this model to show a flow analysis, stress analysis and plastic injection molding prediction analysis (even though I know it's not designed for injection molding). It's a heck of a good time to play with too! With a strong small rope a little thicker than kite string about 3' long you should be able to get the propeller to fly over 100'. Tip: put a little light weight oil where the spinner shaft meets the handle for best results. The oil also helps keep the plastic from getting hot and becoming welded together when you spin it. Have fun! If you open it in SOLIDWORKS to look how I built the model, I will tell you that I wanted the propeller to spin counter-clockwise but I wasn't thinking about that when I made the first blade so I originally built it backwards. Instead of going back and redoing all the sketches to make the blade, I just mirrored it and used some surfacing tools to connect it back to the hub.