Time for a little update post

 Hey, all!

It's been a while since I've given this area of my Tak life some love, so I thought I'd update with some of my goings-on.

Gencon:

It's less than 2 weeks away and Simmon and I are running 7 events (linked above). So, getting everything ready for this has been pretty high on my priority list. There were tournament sets to check, paperwork, promotion, prize-making/purchasing, travel arrangements, and a host of other behind the scenes tasks that we have been whack-a-moling over the past 6 months, hopefully culminating in a great experience for all.

Crafting:

In addition to, and as part of, GenCon prep, I've been crafting a good bit this year. Each member of my family chose a new hobby to focus some weekend time on, and mine was soapstone carving. Which means, in addition to the 3D printing, laser, CNC, woodworking, and resin, you will be seeing some hand-carved stone pieces popping up as prizes now. You can follow my Instagram (@rabbitboy84) if you want to see more examples and be kept up to date with new projects...like the one I plan on revealing at GenCon...

Community Building:

I was elected president of the US Tak Association again this year, and we've been hard at work trying to bulletproof our infrastructure and prepare for growth. A community survey was recently put out to help us further formulate our advertising strategies, and we've continued pushing our tournament schedule to get more play for more levels throughout the year. Next up are the TransAtlanTak Showdown and the 3rd Quarter Beginner Tournament which will start August 3rd and August 13th respectively. Just follow the links for more info :)

Other community building efforts have been the 3D contest (which I plan to write up more fully in the next Capstone Quarterly), creating and posting puzzles on the Discord, and just in general keeping the ideas flowing and evolving along with our wonderful community.

If you made it this far, thanks!

See you out there, and keep on Takking!

Blog Neglect, but Not Content or Community Abandonment

 Good evening everyone!

So, I got to thinking today that I haven't posted anything on here since my Artificer's set was finished and thinking of this made me realize that, unless you came to this blog via the Discord, you might think that the Artificer's Set became sentient and has me locked in the garage, making spare parts for it :)

This is just a short note on the front page to let you know that the community is still active and I am actively creating content within it, but those items usually end up on the Tak Talk Discord in the form of puzzles and conversation, or in the USTA quarterly newsletter.

Thanks for reading! Happy Takking!

P.S. In addition to the Discord (rabbitboy84), I can still also be reached via Reddit (u/rabbitboy84) or email (bill.leighton1@gmail.com).

The Artificer's Travel Tak Set - First Fully Working Version!

After months of tinkering, it is finished! This project offered me many hours of entertainment and really kept my gears turning:) 

Everything except the outer board artwork and the decorations on top of the capstones was designed by me. This required becoming refamiliarized with InkScape for 2D drawing and learning FreeCAD for the 3D design. I also learned Cura as my slicing program and figured out how to get these programs to interface with my Snapmaker 2.0.

For those that want to see the beginning of the process, here is the blog post. I just finished posting videos to my Instagram and decided to put something into long form to go a bit more in depth on each part of this set.

Board

I used a wooden placemat with a canvas backing that I found on Amazon for the board. I cut it down to size and used the laser engraver on my Snapmaker to decorate the outside and burn the board grid on the inside canvas. In the future, I may 3D print or cut the slats myself so that I can more easily control quality and integrate the magnetic and physical end cap attachment points. The canvas has a bit of memory to it as well. So, if you leave it rolled up for any length of time, you have to stretch the fabric back out to get it to lay flat. Not ideal for a travel set which will spend the majority of its life in a rolled state. If I make this part myself in the future, I will choose a different fabric.

Flat Pieces

My first pass at the pieces was overly complicated. I designed a cog and then on the flat faces, made a rotational groove in the shape of the side of the cog so that a standing stone could rest securely on top. My 3D printer did okay with this, but the detail wasn't stellar, and I took another pass at it after having used FreeCAD for another couple months and mulling things over. I settled on a simpler design, but one that keeps (and in fact improves) the stability of a standing stone on top.

Capstones

These also went through a few design incarnations. The capstones are the linchpin of the end cap locking mechanism, so their design is closely tied to the restrictions imposed by my end cap choices. My early 3D printed designs relied on a plastic tab to lock into a groove on the capstone. This turned out to not work too well with the PLA filament I use. It also didn't feel very elegant. So, I revamped the attachment to be magnetic in nature. The final design uses magnets on both the capstones and the end caps for a secure hold and satisfying thunk.

End caps

I think these are my favorite part of the build. The locking hasp is fun to play with, they look pretty sweet, the 15% infill keeps them light, and the distressed paint turned out well. These end caps pull triple duty by holding the set together, becoming a coaster during play, and feature an integrated game counter so you can keep track of flat count, game wins, or how much your part of the bar tab is :)

So there you have it; a unique travel set with an Artificer theme! Stay tuned for further improvements to this set (I am playtesting currently and then shipping it out to have others give their input).

For my next build:  Fire and Ice themed 5x5/6x6 hybrid to go with my Hidden World capstones.