The Incredible Balancing Birdie!

thingiverse

This toy has a unique imprint on my childhood, I used to be so fascinated by its ability to withstand my every effort to knock it down. I can credit this bird to opening my mind to asking how things work, which led to many more things being dissected and put back together down the line and ultimately making me the maker we see today. There are two versions of the bird. The center of mass shows as under the beak. However in the chance there needs to be weight added, the BirdwithCavity STL file has two cavities under the wings that should allow you to hot glue a penny or similar sized coin into it for additional counterbalancing. Please feel free to try it out, share with kids, and post images of the results! I don't have a printer yet so I'm relying on you! Keep checking back as I'm sure with community feedback it'll only be improved. 2/24/2017: I've been getting amazing feedback and advice from everyone. As of right now the best advice printers have given me to share is that the model should be printed with supports and raft if printed horizontally or you may find better success by laying the bird down flat. The model without the cavity seems to cause more trouble than solutions, supports in the cavity are hard to remove and therefore make the bird heavier than it should be especially when scaled down (which may be necessary for most printers) Tmproff has had the best and most balanced print yet. He's included his print in the Made section, and printed with 60% infill horizontally with rafts and supports, its confirmed to balance correctly so the 60% infill may be the key number. The rounded bottom of the tail doesn't provide much area to stick to the build plate. I've also seen a print scaled down and printed flat that worked well also. I'll be cooking up version 2 soon, thanks again! How I Designed This Bird was originally sculpted in Blender, refined and cleaned up in Fusion360 and created the pedestal.