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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 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 Conveyor-belt sushi party tray
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium (set)
MAIN PURPOSE: Slide little sushi plates round an oval track like a conveyor-belt bar
Kaiten-zushi at home. A 44 mm track runs right round an oval tray, past a central island for the soy sauce, wasabi and ginger. Load little plates of sushi onto the track, and the guests push the train round, taking what they like as it passes, just as in a conveyor-belt sushi bar. It works for tapas, dim sum and dessert bites too.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Jastrow illusion twin trays
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Hold pens in two identical curved trays that seem to change size when swapped
These two curved desk trays are exactly the same size, but nobody will believe it. Laid one above the other, the lower one looks clearly bigger. Swap them over and the other one grows. It is the Jastrow illusion, found in 1889: your eye compares the short inner edge of the top curve with the long outer edge of the one below. Use them for pens and clips, and keep a ruler handy for the arguments.
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 Levitating-pencil desk base
By Krypto
Complexity
Medium
MAIN PURPOSE: Float a pencil in mid-air on ring magnets, touching only a little end plate
A pencil that hangs in the air above the desk. Disc magnets pressed into the four sockets push up against two ring magnets slid onto the pencil, so it floats with nothing underneath it, held in line by its point resting lightly on the end plate. Flick it and it spins silently for a long time. Glue a coin or a small mirror on the end plate for the smoothest spin.
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

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