Tardis Transformer V2
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I designed the original version of this as a challenge to see if I even could. While successful (and vastly more popular and attention-getting than I expected by far) it had a lot of design issues. It was huge, took over a pound of plastic to create. It was fragile and wobbly, wouldn't stand up unsupported, and tended to fall apart if you picked it up wrong. Since then I've been completely redesigning it, to be simpler to make and more rugged, something that can actually be used as a toy, that doesn't cost a fortune to print.
This design is scaled to two-thirds the size of the original. It takes about one-third the plastic to print. It has about half as many parts, and is easier to assemble. The transformation sequence is simpler. Thanks to some interlocking tabs, the toy holds together very firmly both in robot mode and in Tardis mode. Due to the reduced weight and the redesigned joints, the robot easily stands on its own unsupported.
On the downside, it's can't be posed as freely as the original - there are a lot fewer axis of freedom in the joints, especially in the legs. That's the price you pay for something made completely of plastic.
This was actually a much harder design than the original - it's a lot harder to design a durable toy than something that just has to look right.
The toy stands about eight and a half inches tall in robot mode. In Tardis mode, it's four and a half inches tall, and two and a half inches wide. At 25% infill it takes 6…
