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Models shared by the SO3D.xyz community. Open any of them in the generator to see exactly how it was built, remix it, or print it as-is. Browse the model library by category

Preview of Buffon's-needle pi tray
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Estimate pi by dropping matchsticks on a tray of parallel lines
In 1777 the Comte de Buffon found a way to work out pi with nothing but sticks: drop sticks as long as the gap between parallel lines, and the chance that one lands across a line is exactly 2 divided by pi. Drop 40 mm sticks onto this tray, which has raised lines exactly 40 mm apart, count how many you dropped (N) and how many cross or touch a line (C), and pi is about 2N divided by C. A hundred drops gets close to 3.1; a whole class pooling results gets closer still.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Zhang Heng earthquake ball
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Detect a tremor when a marble balanced on a slender column falls into the dish
In 132 AD the Chinese astronomer Zhang Heng built the first seismoscope: eight bronze dragons each held a ball, and a tremor made one drop its ball into the mouth of a bronze toad, clanging the alarm and showing the direction of the quake. This is the one-dragon version. A marble sits in a shallow cup on top of a tall, slim screw-in column; a door slam, heavy footsteps or a real tremor tips it off and it lands in the dish with a clatter. Place it on different floors and see which part of the house shakes most.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Woodlouse choice chamber
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Let woodlice choose between damp, dry, light and dark, and count where they go
A classic biology experiment. The four bays meet at an open centre: DAMP and DARK, DAMP and LIGHT, DRY and DARK, DRY and LIGHT. Release ten woodlice in the middle, cover the top with cling film, shade the DARK half with card and wait ten minutes. Almost all of them end up in the damp, dark bay, because woodlice are crustaceans that dry out quickly and hide from the light that would show them to birds. Count them, swap the conditions round and try again, then return them to where you found them.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Two-tone flower vase
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Split a white flower's stem between two dyed waters and grow a two-coloured bloom
Flowers drink through tiny tubes in their stems, all the way up to the petals. Fill one side of this twin vase with blue food-coloured water and the other with red, split the stem of a white carnation down the middle, and put one half in each. Within a day the petals turn blue on one side and red on the other, a striking table flower and a lesson in capillary action. BLUE and RED are raised on the two chambers.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Venus flower-basket wedding vase
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Hold wedding flowers in a lattice vase modelled on a deep-sea glass sponge
The Venus flower basket is a deep-sea sponge with a skeleton of glass lattice so strong that engineers copied it for the Gherkin in London. A pair of tiny shrimp swim in when young, grow too big to leave, and live inside together for life, so in Japan the dried sponge is a traditional wedding gift. This tall, round-cornered vase has the same diagonal lattice cut right through its walls; drop a test tube inside, add two stems for the couple, and the light pours through the walls.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Moon-crater impact tray
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Drop pebbles into flour and cocoa from marked heights to make lunar craters
How did the Moon get its craters? Fill the tray with 3 cm of flour, dust cocoa over the top, and drop a marble from the 10 cm mark on the back board, then from the 20 cm mark. Each impact punches out a crater and throws white flour across the dark cocoa in bright rays, just like the rays round the crater Tycho. Compare sizes, heights and weights, then smooth it over and start again.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Stream-table river maker
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Watch water carve rivers, meanders and a delta in a tray of sand
A geography lesson that builds itself. Fill the tray with damp sand, pour water into the tall cup at the mountain end, and it seeps out through a small hole at the bottom to carve a river down the slope. Watch it meander, cut banks, braid into channels and drop a fan-shaped delta where it reaches the SEA end, where a drain hole lets the water out. Change the slope with a book under the cup and see how a steep river behaves differently from a gentle one.
AR view Open in app
Preview of UV-bead sunscreen tester
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Prove a sunscreen still works with beads that change colour in sunlight
Is last summer's sunscreen still any good? Fill both dishes with UV colour-change beads, stretch cling film over each, and rub a little sunscreen onto the film over the SPF dish. Put them in the sun: the BARE beads turn bright purple and pink in seconds, while the protected beads stay pale if the sunscreen is working. Try different brands, factors and old bottles, or wipe some off to see why you need to reapply.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Good-day drop-zone dish
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Empty your pockets into bays whose floors wish you a good day
A dish for the hall table with four bays: KEYS, WALLET, PHONE and BUDS. When you come home everything goes in and the bays fill up. In the morning, as you take each thing, a word appears in the floor beneath it, and when all four are empty the dish says HAVE A GOOD DAY. If a word is still hidden, you know exactly what you are about to leave behind.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Umbrella-drip fern planter
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Stand wet umbrellas where their drips water a fern beside them
Wet umbrellas drip, and plants need water: this stand puts the two together. Folding umbrellas and walking sticks go in the tall tube; the rainwater runs down to a small hole at the bottom and trickles into the pebble layer of the planter beside it, where a fern or ivy drinks it up. No puddle in the hall, no watering can, and the doorway gets a living plant.
AR view Open in app

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