Wine rack and glasses



I wanted to make a small wine rack, and made some sketches along the lines of this one:
Then my daugter reminded me that I have access to a laser cutter (at the Santa Fe maker space), so I could just cut panels out of thin sheet material, make a bunch of boxes with finger joints as shown, and stack them up.

See Makercase.com

But that means there are 2 walls between any two bottles, which is a waste of material.

If you make half-boxes, it is possible, most of the time, to make an n×m rack. The number of panels needed is m(n+1)+n(m+1), which is not always an even number, for example for n=1 and m=2.

I'm making a 4×4 rack, so I'm good.
Instead of 64 panels, I only need to cut 40.
winerack2.dxf

But is it even possible to make a panel such that you can make a grid? For stability, the number of tabs per edge should be at least two. Since an edge is shared by four panels, each tab should be 1/8 of the panel length. I start by placing one tab at the top of one edge. The next positions should be left for the other 3 panels, so the next tab is in position 5. On the opposite edge, skip position 1, and place tabs at 2 and 6. Maybe this will work?

With a panel as shown, you can make a unit square cell. The unit cells lock together so it is possible to make a grid of any size.

Initially, it was not obvious that this would be possible.

Down the math rabbit hole! Is it possible to make a 3-dimensional grid of interlocking panels using only a single panel shape?

Yes!

Can the same be done for other (non-cube) space-filling shapes, such as tetrahedra?

In 2 dimensions, can this be done for a grid of triangles (maybe not) or hexagons (maybe yes)?

Enough playing! Since the parts all interlock, a strap is all that is needed to hold the rack together. No fasteners.
The most elegant assembly was to make 8 boxes, each consisting of two L's. That leaves two L's to make up opposite corners, and four single panels.
It all comes apart.
I replaced the construction strap with string windings.
Loosely related: On the laser cutter we can also engrave glass. So I did a bunch of these stemless wineglasses in 2022. 

andrew_r.png    ed_r.png
henk_r.png      ivonne_r.png
maike_r.png     mirjam_r.png
niels_r.png     oda_r.png
saskia_r.png    sofia_r.png
tyko_r.png      vincent_r.png

wineglass.dxf



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