This project was to design and print a claw to pick fruit from our apricot tree.

 

My design was a three-pronged claw, pivoting on a center ring attached to a pole and manipulated by a string to each claw.  The claws were printed as two flat pieces and glued together.   They then hinged to the center flange.

CAD Drawings:

 

 

 

If at first you don’t succeed: try, try again.

 

– First the 3D printer kept sticking at a certain height and then my center piece kept tipping, so I needed to find what was binding the screws and to design a flange for stability during printing.

 

 

 

Final product:

 

And a video of it in action:

3d-printing