A set of eight decorative snap together containers which vary in height and can be used to hold pencils. The top and bottom pieces are common to all of the containers; each contains 4 cube shaped slots which accept sets of side pieces. Four identical pieces are used to make the sides of the containers. The side pieces vary in size forming containers with 6 different heights.

Here are 10 stl files, the two end pieces, and 8 pieces to be used for the walls of the container. Any one of the eight pieces can be used by printing 4 copies and assembling a container with the top and bottom pieces. If the pieces are printed in different colors decorative patterns appear.

OpenSCAD code is included.

MakerBot

MakerBot Replicator (5th Generation)

Yes

Yes

0.2 mm or 0.3 mm

Pieces 10_108, 10_115, and 12_69 need support all the other pieces can be printed in draft mode.

These containers are made of cubes and were constructed with the aid of a tiling program -- tiling-003.tar - at http://djm.cc/dmoews.html - see thing:3381796 and thing:3400310.

Sets of cubes make up the space between the end pieces. In this set of containers the space is always filled with 4 identical pieces composed of cubes joined by their faces. Each end piece has 4 cube shaped openings - so in the shortest container 8 cubic spaces need to be filled. The only way to do so with 4 identical pieces is to use 4 rods each composed of 2 cubes joined together.

Taller containers are made by adding cubes in layers, each additional layer containing 8 cubes. To make taller containers with 4 identical pieces, one needs sets of pieces composed of 4 cubes, 6 cubes, 8 cubes, 10 cubes and so on.

As the height of the container increases the number of possible sets that can be used
increases and interesting patterns appear.

The pieces found with the tiling searches can be displayed with the openSCAD program, view_pieces.scad. It shows 8 6-cubes, 9 8-cubes, 115 10-cubes, and 81 12-cubes. OpenSCAD code which can create any of the pieces is included - make_pieces.scad. There are additional comments in the openSCAD code.

Clearances for the pieces is 0.3 mm - a settable parameter in the openSCAD code.