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Tech

Real Life Katamari Ball Tests the Limits of 3D Printing

The King of All Cosmos is pleased.
​A 3D printed Katamari already accumulating crap. Image: Noah Hornberger on Thingiverse

Katamari Damacy took the gaming world by storm in 2004 with a simple concept. You roll a ball into objects that stick to it and make the ball bigger, which then allows you to roll into and gather bigger objects, making the ball even bigger, and so on. You start by rolling up loose change on the floor and before you know you're rolling into trucks and buildings. The challenge was to see how big of a Katamari ball you could make before the timer runs out.

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Kata​mari Roll, a new project by Arian Croft, uses the same idea to hopefully test the limits of 3D printing.

Croft, who's known for his 3D-printed board game Pock​et-Tactics, got the idea for the project when he spotted a 3D model of a Katam​ari Ball on Th​ingiverse, 3D printer manufacturer Makerbot's repository of models that users can share and print. "I noticed that it both hadn't been printed yet, and that, though left in a repository full of random objects, it had yet to be used to gather a mound of objects," he said.

Like the game that inspired it, Katamari Roll has a simple concept. Take the Katamari Ball, add a random 3D model to it, print it out, and pass it along. With 12 iterations so far, it's off to a good start.

Take the Katamari Ball, add a random 3D model to it, print it out, and pass it along

"It took off on the first day, and the clump has gotten bigger and bigger since," Croft said. "It's slowed down a bit, though as I document and more people catch on, it'll grow, until, I guess, it can't be printed anymore?"

Croft said that there are definitely limitations to how big the ball can get—Makerbot's biggest 3D printer can only handle objects 30 centimeters in width and length and 45 centimeters tall—but that most of the people contributing know ways to print models in sections to make them more manageable as they get bigger.

When the project is done, Croft plans to construct a diorama including the King of All Cosmos, the character in the game that judges the size of your Katamari.

"Worst case scenario, we learn from mistakes, comprising future rolls of less complicated models (maybe taking it easy on the full-body scans of Sir Paul McCartney and such) and get better at it, much like you do in Katamari Damacy," he said. "As for how big… not really sure. It is, to my knowledge, uncharted territory."

You can keep up with Katamari Roll on Thingiverse, and Croft's Tumblr.