Luggable Hug

Sometimes you just need a hug.

Now you can carry one with you for your times of need. You can also carry extras to give to friends. You can even offer one to a person you just met who clearly would benefit from one.

The letters are all built up from a column made from two equal-sized spheres which form the corners of each stroke of the letter. The two-sphere column is defined in a module.

module corner() { 
        //makes basic rounded edges easy
  translate([0,0,sp]) // move up to vertical zero
  sphere(sp);
  translate([0,0,thk+sp]) 
  sphere(sp);
  }

Using hulled spheres is an easy way to give rounded edges to each letter. Rounded edges are nice for a thing which you'll carry in a pocket. hulled spheres also avoids needing to use chamfering (which isn't built in to OpenSCAD). The distance between the top and bottom spheres determines the thickness of the letters.

Another module defines a basic stroke for the elements of each letter. The next illustration has a column at each corner. We are looking down from the top the bar. Using hull() to surround the four columns makes the stroke of the H.

module bar(){
hull() {
corner();
translate([0,h,0])
corner();
translate([w,h,0])
corner();
translate([w,0,0])
corner();
}
}

The letter H is made from three bar() modules, placed so that they overlap and make the letter. The next illustration uses colors to show how the bars fit together, but color is not part of the working code.

// Letter H
module h(){
     bar();
    translate([w*2.33,0,0])
    bar();
    translate([sp,h/2+w/2,0]) // middle of height (centered)
    rotate([0,0,-90])
    scale([1,.6,1]) 
    bar();
}

The other letters are made in a similar way. Look at the code in the luggable-hug.scad file to examine the details.

The letters need both some space between them to be legible, and they need an unobtrusive, strong connection to keep the whole word together. The connectors are a pair of spheres which overlap the letters.

There's a loop attached to the first stroke of the H. You can use it to attach a key ring or a necklace string. You can omit the loop if you want. NOTE: Printing with a loop requires using your slicer's "add supports" feature.

My 3D project was inspired by the pottery Pocket Hug from Made with Mud

Of course, even if you don't choose to download and print this project, be sure to give real hugs whenever you can!

Available Files:

SCAD files for study/modification and and STL files for quick prints

luggable-hug.scad - luggable-hug.stl - appx. 1hr to print on Lulzbot Mini

GPL3 License