Tricky Tumbler

This is my design for Make:'s April Fool's 3D Printing Contest.

The Design

Designed using Sketchup, this is a lidded tumbler that seems impossible to drink from properly. Try to sip from the side and it spills all over you. There's no good access from the top either (it's only good for filling it up). There's also no way to really cram a straw in there, but why would you want to when there's a secret straw connected to one of the holes on the side?

It's tough to see how it works from the outside but each of the 12 holes on the perimeter is connected to a shaft that runs down the inside of the tumbler. 11 of these are open along the side making it easy for liquid to get to the hole and onto your shirt, but the 12th shaft has only a small hole at the very bottom, making it a perfect little straw.

Here's a picture from an early prototype with a removable lid (which printed easier but didn't work as well).

The Secret

"So, how do you know which hole to drink from?" you might be asking. Well, you could use a trial and error approach, but that would be lame when there's a secret code on top to guide you.

There's a binary code on the lid over each hole representing numbers from 1 to 12. The right hole is 12 (1100) because 'C' is always the right answer, especially in hexadecimal.

One final note, the print took a fair bit of cleanup due to the amount of support structures added by the 3D printer at my local library. Maybe the bits of plastic in the water are part of the prank...? Yeah, let's go with that.

Thanks and happy making.