Discover the Flexigrid, a versatile and engaging fidget toy. The Flexigrid consists of a grid of interlocked shapes, each capable of sliding vertically to adjust their height relative to their neighbors. This simple yet captivating design provides endless possibilities for customization and personalization.

Key Features

• Shapes!: Customize your Flexigrid with different shapes. Choose from Rectangle 🟦, Heart ❤️, Circle 🟢, Diamond 🔸,  Cross ❌, and Checker 𖣯 for a unique fidgeting experience.
• Customizable Grid Layout: Choose the number of rows and columns to create a Flexigrid that fits your preferences.
• Adjustable Dimensions: Specify the width, depth, and height of each rectangular prism to match your desired look and feel.
• Edge Rounding: Tailor the roundness of the edges for a smooth, comfortable experience.
• Print Quality Settings: Fine-tune the tolerance, line width, and number of walls to achieve the perfect print quality for your Flexigrid.
• Color Customization: Use the coloring tools in Bambu Studio to add a personal touch to your Flexigrid.

Whether you enjoy tinkering with different configurations or simply want a unique fidget toy, the Flexigrid offers a delightful combination of creativity and functionality. Download, print, and enjoy the Flexigrid, and share your creations!

Additional Notes

This fidget toy is designed for your customization! The print profiles listed here are examples that you can download and print, but feel free to use the customize button to design and create your own unique fidget toys.

Customization and Testing: Given the highly customizable nature of the Flexigrid, not all possible combinations of settings have been tested. The model has minimal limits to ensure printability. If you try to make a grid that won't fit on the printer bed, it will remove pieces from the rows and columns until it fits. Also, if you modify the advanced settings, be sure to check the sliced model before printing to ensure that parts aren’t fused together. 

Printing Recommendations: It prints fully assembled and there are no special slicer settings required. I’ve been printing the Flexigrid with a 0.4 mm nozzle and a layer height of 0.28 mm. This is about the maximum layer height you can use with a 0.4 mm nozzle, and I haven’t encountered any issues with this setup. But smaller layer sizes should give you better quality.

Large Grids: If you try to create a grid larger than 15x15 on the MakerWorld website, it'll probably give up before it is done. The alternative is to download OpenSCAD to your computer and run it locally. Unfortunately it is a little involved. Here's a page to get you started. https://www.dr-lex.be/3d-printing/customizer.html

Pixel Colored Fidgets

If you are printing any of the multicolor Flexigrids where the individual “pixels” are colored, you’ve probably found that a lot of filament is being flushed. I’ve found that you can add a clone fidget that you set Bambu Studio to flush-into for very little additional filament.  Look at the print profile for the Checker Grid fidget. I’ve included four plates where I start with a multicolor fidget and add an additional copy of it that is flushed into on each of the next three plates. For my slicer settings, the single multicolor fidget uses 32 g of filament. Adding 1, 2 or 3 additional flush-into fidgets only uses 4 additional grams for each one. Because of the symmetry in the original multicolor fidget, the flush-into fidgets still look mostly symmetrically colored and interesting. 

Coloring a Flexigrid

One approach for coloring your own Flexigrid is to start by creating a grid with an odd number of rows and columns of the same size. For example, a 7x7 grid. Next, choose a size for each rectangular prism. To keep them reasonably sized, I suggest using 10 mm for each dimension. This will result in a grid that is 70x70 mm.

Then, set the height of each prism to 70 mm to match the width and depth of the grid. Download the model and load it into Bambu Studio.

To add color, plan for color changes at specific layers. Since the total height is 70 mm and the grid is 7x7, divide the height by the number of rows (70 / 7), which equals 10 mm. This means you should perform a color change every 10 mm.

Updates

 June 13th, 2024 - Added  “Movement Range” customization. This lets you adjust the vertical movement between pieces, from minimal (50%) to maximum stretch (100%). Setting it around 50% will hide the slider slot that is between all of the pieces. 

June 15th, 2024 - Added custom shapes.  Choose from Rectangle, Heart, Circle, Diamond, and Cross. For the non-rectangle shapes, it will adjust the size to be an odd number of rows and columns so the shape is symetrical. 

June 20th, 2024 - Added a Checkered shape. 

Happy Printing!

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