3D Printable TOWARD Construction Kit

If you have access to a 3D printer and want a modular way to build TOWARD and other related structures, here are some options for putting together your own construction kit.

To get started, you’ll need to download some 3D print files. There are a few ways to use the files, so you’ll have to make some choices. Below we’ll outline how to get just enough pieces to build TOWARD exactly for each choice, but if you’re putting together a more general construction kit, you might want to print more of each component than indicated.

(A) Choose a TO set. All TOs have 10mm long edges. You will print 38 TOs total, but if you want to color-code them you could make 6 in one color, 8 in a second color, and 24 in a third color:

• TO.stl has peg holes in every face, including squares.
• TO-hexes_only.stl has peg holes in all hexagonal faces.
• If you want exactly the peg holes required to make TOWARD, then for your 38 TOs print 24 copies of TOWARD-edge.stl, 8 copies of TOWARD-vertex3.stl, and 6 copies of TOWARD-vertex4.stl.

(B) Choose a peg type and print 48 copies of it:

• long_peg-hexagon.stl will leave a 2mm gap between TOs. The resulting TOWARD will be about 117mm tall when resting on a rhombus.
• short_peg-hexagon.stl will allow the TOs to abut face-to-face. The resulting TOWARD will be 100mm tall when resting on a rhombus.
• tapered_peg-hexagon.stl will also allow the TOs to abut face-to-face. It has an hourglass shape to allow easier removal than the other two options.

I’ve printed out a set of TOs from TO.stl in white, yellow, and black to mimic the in-person TOWARD build.

Here is what assembly looks like using long pegs (long_peg-hexagon.stl):

If you want to mimic the model above, here are the exact components you’ll need to print and the plastics I used:

Quantity	File	Filament
24	TO.stl	Matte Ivory White PLA
8	TO.stl	Matte Lemon Yellow PLA
6	TO.stl	Matte Charcoal PLA
48	long_peg-hexagon.stl	Matte Ash Grey PLA

I also printed out a set of the tapered pegs (tapered_peg-hexagon.stl).

Here are a few angles of the finished build with the gapless face-to-face connections that the tapered pegs allow:

If you want to customize this further, I’ve made the OpenSCAD files available. If you want to experiment with making short square pegs, for example, you can edit short_peg.scad. Here is the full collection of files associated with this project:

Description	.stl	.scad
TO with square and hexagonal holes	TO.stl	TO.scad
TO with only hexagonal holes	TO-hexes_only.stl	TO-hexes_only.scad
TOWARD edge TO	TOWARD-edge.stl	TOWARD-edge.scad
TOWARD degree-3 vertex TO	TOWARD-vertex3.stl	TOWARD-vertex3.scad
TOWARD degree-4 vertex TO	TOWARD-vertex4.stl	TOWARD-vertex4.scad
Long (hexagonal) peg	long_peg-hexagon.stl	long_peg.scad
Short (hexagonal) peg	short_peg-hexagon.stl	short_peg.scad
Tapered (hexagonal) peg	tapered_peg-hexagon.stl	tapered_peg.scad