Laser Cut Low Cost Molecular Model

Molecular models are an important tool in chemistry education. I think it is especially useful when you have enough pieces that all students have the opportunity to play with them and build their own models.

Conventional models are expensive, so you may think twice before placing them in the hands of students, specially children. The solution is to make a low-cost model so everybody can play and you don´t care as much if you lose a piece.

3D printing is not the best way to go for this, since it takes a long time to make a lot of pieces, even small ones. Enter the laser cuter. Fast, easy and you can make hundreds of pieces with one 3 mm 60 x 90 cm MDF board.

For the fullerene model I used a 1 mm non-corrugated cardboard sheet, since it needs to be foldable.

I use common 5 mm plastic straws to connect the pieces.