My son’s current obsession is the New York Times word game Spelling Bee. Every day, he looks up the letters (he says it’s gonna be a good one if the puzzle has e & d, or i & n & g). Then it’s time to work our way up the ranks to “genius”.
Our routine is to put the daily puzzle on our whiteboard. We keep the honeycomb grid drawn on, and fill in the letters every morning. The problem with this is the hexagons frequently get smudged, and become crookeder and crookeder each time they’re redrawn.
To address this, I 3D printed the honeycomb grid. The model is a simple one I made in Tinkercad. An arrangement of hexagons, the Spelling Bee mascot on top, and insets on the back for neodymium magnets that can be attached to our magnetic whiteboard.
I uploaded this model to Craftcloud and ordered it in yellow PLA.
When the print arrived, I inserted in the magnets. Unfortunately, the magnetic force of my whiteboard is weak due to its glass surface layer, and the 4mm magnets I used weren’t quite strong enough. That’ll have to be worked out in v2. I ended up reinforcing the bond with reusable double-sided tape. Here’s the result.
On a side note, if you’re a developer, check out my code-themed homage to another NYT word game, Connections. Be warned, it’s a challenge.
Nice concept.