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Fidget Spinners



What are fidget spinners?

A fidget spinner is a toy consisting of a ball bearing in the center of a multi-lobed flat structure made from metal or plastic which is designed to spin along its axis with little effort.


Parts of a fidget spinner


sketch

ringparts


Below are the designs of my fidget spinners. The center hole for all my fidget spinners have been dimensioned to 8 by 22 by 7 mm to fit the ABEC 608 Bearing for the rotation mechanism. Fidget Spinners 1 and 2 are original designs from me while Fidget Spinner 3 is inspired by Ninja Star Fidget Spinner. Hexagonal holes were added to Fidget Spinner 1 and 2 to allow the fitting of Hex Nut M8 to act as counter-weights.

Fidget Spinner 1

fs1a



To begin, sketch the fidget spinner according to its specifications. To do this:

  1. Sketch out the main unit of the fidget spinner with 3 circles. The inner circle will be of diameter 22mm to make space for the ABEC 608 Bearing while my middle circle and outer circle is of diameter 30mm and 70mm respectively. Ensure that the center of the circles are coincident to the origin.
  2. From the middle circle, I sketched the wings using the Spline tool. The spline connects the middle circle to outer circle. I then drew a straight line¹ from the middle to circle to outer circle. I used the Mirror tool to mirror the spline thus achieving the shape of 1 wing. Also, do ensure that the ends of the splines are coincident to the circles.
  3. I then used the Circular Pattern tool located under the under the Create tab to create the other 2 wings revolving around the center of the object.



fs1b



For this step, I extruded the sketch to a height of 8mm.


fs1c



Next, I drew a hexagon an aligned it with the straight line¹ using the vertical constraint. How did I create the hexagon. Under the Create tab I clicked on the Polygon tool. I wanted the dimension from the center of the polygon to edge to be 6.5mm in order to fit the Hex Nut M8. Hence, I chose the Inscribe option for my polygon in order to get the dimension of 6.5mm as mentioned. Next, I use the Circular Pattern tool again to create 2 more 6.5mm corresponding hexagons.


fs1d



Lastly, I extruded the hexagons downwards to create a hexagonal hole. Also, I filleted of the sharp edges of the fidget spinner as the final touch so that it will be safe for people to use.

More examples: