Hextraction Super Board Game - Grid for A1 mini

Hextraction is a FAN-TA-STIC game 
where beads fly through hexagonal tiles 
that you and your opponents strategically place 
to create paths to get YOUR ball in the end zone,
while blocking your opponents' balls
with dead ends and booby traps 

If you are a happy Hextraction fan:  I have more fun for you! Please look for the "6.  Print Hextraction game tiles" section further down.

New to Hextraction? read along!

What is Hextraction?

Hextraction is a FAN-TA-STIC game with so much action, traps, physics, effects and randomness that no two games are the same. 

Each turn you get to:

1. Carefully place on your 3D printed board one of your 3D printed tiles from your hand of randomly picked tiles. 
2. You also get to launch a steel ball down a start ramp and frantically watch it fly through a series of tunnels and paths created by all of the hexagonal tiles laid out by all players. These paths can include traps, levers, jumps and even special effects that are all strategically placed to get your ball in the end zone (to win), while blocking your opponents' balls with path deviations and just plainly devious tiles.
3. You then pick another tile at random from the pool.
4. Tiles that have special effects

What's best part? This game is free to play, free to print and will forever keep improving as designers keep coming with AWESOME ideas to make CRAZY tiles (also free to print) that often flip the game on its head. This is all thanks to Zack Freedman, who chose to offer his game to the crowds of 3D printing enthusiasts, and let players and designers contribute to this wonderful game.

• "Hextraction is an open-source game - you can download the files to print yourself, or find a pre-printed set to buy.”
• “Hextraction is a 3D-printable, modder-friendly board game designed by Zack Freedman of Voidstar Lab.”

To get an idea of its potential and learn some rules watch the Hextraction video.

To play the game, you will need to:

1. Print the grid: this current page contains the files you need to print the grid for the 27 slots version (more slots means more fun!). It can be printed on the A1 mini or other printers with larger build plate. I recommend PETG to make your board very sturdy, but PLA work fine too. Printing and Assembly instructions are further down. 
2. Print the base: look for my Hextraction Super Board Game: Base for A1 mini & +. This includes all the structural parts that are specific to the grid with 27 slots from this page, such as the gutters that channel lost balls all the way to the bottom (that would otherwise fall through), On ramps, End zones, adjustable legs and accessories;
3. Check the Hextraction Getting Started page.
4. Look at the Hextraction Official rules. If you'd like to play by yourself, look at the single player rules.
5. Buy 10 mm steel balls or 3/8" slingshot ammo. 50 of them seems like a good number for 3-4 people.
6. Print Hextraction game tiles, the more the better! Here are links to my favourites sets.

• Hextraction Tile Set A - Super Starter Pack: includes plenty of tiles to get your Hextraction games started, along with some very cool tiles that will give you an idea of what is possible with this game.
• Hextraction Tiles Set A - PETG parts: since PETG parts need different printing requirements, I pooled all the PETG parts from set A into this file.
• Hextraction Tiles Set B - Flip Flop+Secret tiles: with sets A and B you will have all the basic starter tiles recommended, and enough whacky tiles to show you how much talent and creativity went into designing such mischievous contraptions!
• Hextraction Tiles Set C - Deviations: spice up your games with randomness and a bit of malevolence.
• Hextraction Tiles Set D - Traps! : traps are very useful to slow your opponents down and tear apart  their sophisticated plans.
• Hextraction Tiles Set E - Wild Tiles: Hextraction tile creators are (thankfully) not selected by committees or review boards. Nope, if you let them loose, they come up with ingenious and/or crazy ideas, the perfect recipe for exotic tiles with strange themes or effects.
• Hextraction Tiles Set F - Mega pack:  if your games get slowed down by effects tiles, balance things out by adding regular tiles. And no regular does not mean boring. 
• Hextraction Tiles Set G - Lucky Unlucky tiles: Feeling lucky? With this set, you can test it out, or better yet, you can bestow bad luck upon your opponents. Feeling better now?
• Hextraction Tiles Set H - Tile rail + Golf: if you thought Hextraction was fun, wait until you play the Skyrail tile, my absolute favorite tile. And those golf-themed are sweet. 
• Hextraction Tiles Set I - Abuse of power: some tiles have, or give too much power. Don't print this set. It will change your games for the worst. Or the best! Just depends on the point of view.
• Hextraction Tiles Set J - BAM! : you slip, you explode, you burn, earth splits under your ball. That's what this set is about. And some good (and evil) magic.

Why pick the 27 slot version of the “Super Fancy Remix of the Hextraction Game Board”?

The inventor of this game, Zack Freedman, saw the potential of making Hextraction open-source: Anyone can download, print and MODIFY the game for free. As a result, the game keeps expanding and improving. 

There are a lot of Hextraction board variations online and several hundreds of Hextraction tiles!

The original board by Zack Freedman is shown on the image on the right.  

It has a 22 slot grid, with On Ramps at the top and two Goals at the bottom. You can add to it a gutter system (base) to retrieve balls that would otherwise fall through the grid, then on the table, the floor and eventually under the stove.

After seeing so many amazing Hextraction tiles, I realized that a bigger Hextraction board would make the games more fun. 

I have inspected many Hextraction boards and, after tweaking it, I found the Super Fancy Remix by Inaudable to be the best bang for the buck.  

The Super Fancy board is shown in the 2 pictures below (this is my remix, printed on my A1 mini).

• It has 27 slots, so games are even crazier. 
• It features an AWESOME system of gutters, where beads end up in a plate at the bottom, making them easier to retrieve. 
• It is sturdy.
• It uses less filament.
• It has leveling legs. 
• It features bead holders for 4 players.
• There are cute tokens to be handed out to the winner of each round, along with a token holder.
• All of the extras can be screwed to the back of the base using 3D printed bolts and a cute hex bolt spanner, making the board completely portable and easy to stow away!

Unfortunately the Super Fancy Remix board does not fit on the A1 mini build plate. I also found the instructions confusing, so I got to work and remixed the model. For those with a larger printer, I added the original, unsplit grid as a separate profile.

I sorted the parts to make printing and assembly easier: since the grid and the base elements have different printing requirements, they are now in separate files (and webpages). This webpage covers the grid only.

Splitting largers parts of the grid did not hold well with glue, so I had to mashed up the grid elements from multiple sources:

• Hextraction Game Boards by ZackFreedman
• Super Fancy Remix of the Hextraction Game Board by Inaudable
• Hextraction board for small printer by steven.e.collins
• Hextraction 5x15 Board for smaller build plates by SGMedi
• Hextraction 5-5 Plate by Zammster
• I used Tinkercad to cut grid pieces and flipped others.

FYI someone else posted the same board months after I did ( (Super Fancy Remix of the Hextraction Game Board), except that it does not fit the A1 mini and it lacks all the information/pictures above and the extensive assembly guide below.

Printing with PETG:

I used settings optimized for PETG and the following tips, both gathered from Bambu Lab forums.   

• Dry your PETG, even if it's brand new and out of the bag.
• Wash your build plate with Dawn dish soap and warm water. 
• Dry with a fiber-free cloth, making sure to handle the plate by the edges. 
• If using a Smooth plate, add glue to help release the parts.
• Let parts cool completely before removing. If you used glue, rinse it off with water then dry it before assembly.

Assembly

After printing everything, sand/file down rough edges.

This file includes the grid, composed of 4 parts that must be glued together to make 5 columns of 5, 6, 5, 6 and 5 hexagons, as shown below. 

Make sure that all the cogs from every hexagon of all pieces are:

1. Facing up, i.e. under sides with under sides (or if you prefer bottom layer with bottom layer);

2. Oriented toward the bottom of the board (see image below).

   

   Cogs are all on the bottom side of each hexagon, for all pieces to be glued.
   Thanks to @user_667378874 for the tip. 

After aligning 2 pieces, I used binder clips to hold them while the glue cured. 

Cyanoacrylate glue is highly recommended.

If your printer has a larger build plate, download the following print profile: "Grid in two pieces for A1 or bigger (not A1 mini). Once printed, the shorted piece gets glued below the larger one, as show below.  

The grid will have hexagonal 27 slots like in the image below.

Next step is to print the base that is specific to the grid you just assembled: Hextraction Super Board Game: Base for A1 mini & +

Original Hextraction board by Zack Freedman 

and

Super Fancy Remix of the Hextraction Game Board by Inaudable.

are under the following MIT License:

Copyright (c) 2023 Zachary Freedman and Voidstar Lab LLC Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

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