Prototyping the Artificer's Tak Set

Hello Takkers!

I'm writing this COVERED in sawdust and metal shavings. My feet are numb and my nose is running from the cold. I have small cuts on my hands, and a blister on my thumb...

And I'm having a great time crafting my ideas into reality!

The idea for the Artificer's Set started as an idea for a travel set that could be played without needing a perfectly flat surface. I mentioned the idea on the Tak Discord and went back and forth with a list of wants. I wanted a fully contained board and piece set that used slats of wood with canvas on one side and the board with attached flaps and a strap to roll up and secure the board with the pieces inside. Here is a sketch of that first idea:

As the discussion evolved and I let my brain ponder the idea, I decided that I didn't like the strap, and was concerned that the end flaps wouldn't accomplish the job in the manner I wanted. So, I came up with a new closure system:

This felt more secure to my mind, though harder to make. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the sliding hook pin would get in the way when rolling up the board. I had to find a way to get it to hide away when not in use. And I found the answer while driving for work. I was mulling over the problem when it finally came to me. These little sparks of inspiration make it all worth it! I designed this in my head while on the road, and then sketched it out at my next stop:

I wanted the end caps to be functional outside of holding the set together. Gruppler gave me the idea of making them into coasters. Then, building on this, I added a game dial to keep track of wins. After more tweaking and thinking, my idea came to resemble this for the end caps:

The first prototype was a moderate success. It did it's job of showing what works and what doesn't. I had originally designed it so the board wrapped over itself to make a tight enough roll to comfortably pick up with one hand. But, the extra thickness in the overlap area required an offset center "coaster" which then messed up the aesthetics and the game dial function. My options to fix this were to make the end caps bigger to remove the overlap, or reduce the board size. I settled on the latter to keep the set size more compact.

Here are 2 short videos of my progress:

Opening

Closing

And....I just bought a 3D printer! So, stay tuned for my further development with that new tool.

Thanks and enjoy!!