3D Printed Icosahedron Christmas Star

I wanted to do something unique for Christmas this year. So I designed a star in Autodesk Fusion and 3D printed it using my son’s home 3D printer.

I modelled the star’s core as an icosahedron, a polyhedron with 20 equilateral triangular faces. Each triangular face had a hole from which “ray” emerged. I modelled the ray as a lofted surface transitioning from a circular hole to a star profile. The ray had a threaded base so that it could screw into its hole in the core. The rays were designed so that they could slot into each other for easy storage after the Christmas season. The top triangular face didn’t have a ray. Instead, its hole was used to insert a bulb into the core of the star. If you take away the electrical fittings, the entire star was 3D printed. Even the threaded adapters used to secure the rays to the core were 3D printed.

 

Today I hung up the star to test it.

Maybe this year I should take part in our village’s Christmas Star competition. However, the rules state that the star should be handmade and not bought from a store. Well, although this star isn’t bought from a store, technically, it isn’t handmade. It’s made by a 3D printer. 🙂