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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 Sphinx rep-tile nesting trays
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Fill one sphinx-shaped tray exactly with four smaller trays of the same shape
Very few shapes are rep-tiles, shapes that four copies of themselves can tile into a bigger copy of the same shape. The sphinx, six triangles in a lopsided trapezoid, is one of the strangest, found in the 1960s. Print one big tray and four half-size trays: the four small sphinxes fit perfectly inside the big one (turn two of them over), and each of those could in turn be filled with four even smaller ones, forever. A desk tray that doubles as a puzzle.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Salt-dance sound visualiser
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Watch salt jump into patterns on a membrane over a phone speaker
Sound is invisible until you give it something to move. Slide a phone in through the slot, stretch cling film tight over the top like a drum skin and sprinkle on a little salt. Play a tone-generator app and sweep slowly from 100 to 600 Hz: at certain notes the salt suddenly leaps into rings, stars and grids as the membrane vibrates in sections, and between them it goes still. These are the patterns, called cymatics, that Ernst Chladni showed with a violin bow in 1787.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Kanizsa illusion snack trays
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple (set)
MAIN PURPOSE: Set four notched trays together and a bright square appears that is not there
Put four of these round trays in a square with their notches pointing inwards and a bright white square appears between them, with crisp edges that do not exist. It is the Kanizsa illusion: your brain fills in the outline of a shape it expects to see. Fill them with snacks and watch guests swear the square is there. Cats seem to see it too: in a 2021 citizen-science study, pet cats sat in the invisible square about as often as in a real one.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Parabolic Wi-Fi booster
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Beam a router's Wi-Fi towards the room that needs it with a foil-lined parabola
A router sprays its signal in every direction, half of it into the wall or the neighbours. Stand its antenna through the hole in this dish, which sits exactly at the focus of the parabolic back wall, line the curve with foil, and the reflector sends that wasted half forward towards the room you aim it at, often adding a couple of bars there. The same geometry works for sound: stand a phone at the focus and its music is beamed forward too.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Break-glass emergency chocolate box
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Keep a chocolate bar behind "glass" for genuine desk emergencies
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS. Mount it by the desk with a chocolate bar (or a spare phone charger, or headache tablets) displayed behind the window. The "glass" is a sheet of clear plastic that slides in behind the front, so in a real emergency, such as a Monday, a deadline or a meeting that should have been an email, you just lift it out. A great gift for anyone who has ever said "I need chocolate".
AR view Open in app
Preview of Archimedes float scale
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Weigh letters, spices or coins by how deep a cup floats in a bowl of water
No batteries, no springs, just Archimedes: a floating cup sinks until it has pushed aside its own weight in water. Because this cup is exactly 40 x 40 mm, every gram you add sinks it 0.625 mm, so the lines on the side are 20 g apart. Float it in a jug, add rice as ballast until the water sits on the 0 line, then drop in a letter, a spoonful of yeast or a gold ring and read its weight where the waterline lands. Check it with coins of known weight first.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Socket-hung charger shelf
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Hold a charging phone on a shelf that hangs from its own charger plug
A phone charging from a low socket ends up on the floor, dangling or tripping someone up. This shelf needs no screws: the plug-in charger sits inside it, pins out through the hole in the back, and when you plug it in, the charger itself holds the shelf flat against the wall below the switch. The phone stands in the front, its cable coiled out of sight behind it. It works with UK, European and US two-pin and three-pin chargers.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Bottomless infinity ring dish
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Rest rings over a glowing tunnel of lights that seems to go down forever
Drop your rings on this dish and they seem to hover over a tunnel of lights falling away into the table. The floor holds a mirror, a strip of LEDs runs round the walls, and the dish surface is a one-way mirror resting on the ledge: light bounces back and forth between the two mirrors, and each bounce looks deeper. Switch it on at night and it becomes a bedside light too; switch it off and it is a plain mirror dish.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Clear-ice directional freezing box
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Freeze crystal-clear ice from the top down in a thick-walled box
Bar-clear ice is not about boiled or filtered water: it is about which way it freezes. In an ordinary tray the water freezes from every side at once and traps air and minerals in a cloudy middle. This box has 5 mm air-filled walls and stands on feet, so the cold can only get in through the open top. The ice grows straight down and pushes the bubbles ahead of it, leaving a clear block on top and a small cloudy plug at the bottom that you lift out before it freezes. Cut the block into cubes or spheres with a bread knife.
AR view Open in app
Preview of Egg float-test freshness cup
By Krypto
Complexity
Simple
MAIN PURPOSE: Check how fresh an egg is by whether it lies, stands or floats
Every egg has a little air cell that grows as it ages, so an old egg slowly turns into a float. Fill the cup with cold water and lower an egg in. Lying flat on the bottom by FRESH: perfect for poaching. Standing on its point by USE SOON: fine for baking or hard-boiling. Floating up by BIN: throw it out. The tall, narrow cup takes one egg at a time and the three levels are raised in green, gold and red.
AR view Open in app

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