Kicking off the project #

9 Nov 2025. I started messing with a Build-your-tank boardgame idea. The pitch in my head is: players assemble tanks from parts on a kind of 3×3×3 grid (think voxel-y blocks, but for tanks), and I want it to be physical, so parts actually snap together at the table, not just cards.

So I’ve been living in CAD trying to figure out how tank parts should look and how they connect.

How parts connect #

Early on I was sketching different ways for cubes / faces to meet. Here’s where I was at with the general “how does this even attach” problem:

Square Spring Pin (2-way) #

I landed on a 2-way “Square Spring Pin” design for a bunch of the connections. It’s probably not the most elegant solution in the world, but it works well enough for a prototype: parts hold, I can take them apart, and I can iterate.

The pin itself:

And in action:

Circle Spring Pin (rotatable) (WIP) #

I also tried a Circle Spring Pin idea for round / rotatable holes (so turrets or bits could spin). Sounds good on paper, but in practice it doesn’t quite work yet: mainly there’s no good way to print it T-T. Keeping it in the backlog.

Next #

More tank parts, more game components. Dev log #2 when I’ve got more to show.