V‑LOTUS

A finned rocket, an open lotus, and a Ø12 mm peg where the two meet.

Lift the rocket and you are holding a rocket; the bloom stays where it was. 7.1 in tall, 1.8 oz, in PETG, every colour the plastic itself, with no paint and no glue in the joint.

7.1 inches of rocket, standing in an open lotus.

Nothing clamps it and nothing is glued. The rocket comes straight up off the bloom.

Under the boattail, a Ø12 mm peg. In the gold hub, a Ø12.4 mm bore cut 10 mm deep.

It lands on the rim, not on the peg — 2 mm of air stays under the peg, so it settles at the same height every time.

Four colours on one axis: petals, hub, body, nose. Each one a single colour, all the way through.

Back down the same line it came up, and it stands where it stood.

The rocket is not fixed to the flower

Everything holding V‑LOTUS upright is one peg and one hole. The peg under the boattail is Ø12 mm and reaches 8 mm down. The bore in the gold hub is Ø12.4 mm and is cut 10 mm deep. That leaves 0.4 mm across the diameter, 0.2 mm of air a side: loose enough to drop in one-handed, close enough that the rocket stands straight.

The peg is the shorter of the two on purpose. Seated, it stops 2 mm short of the bottom of the hole and the flat underside of the boattail lands on the hub’s rim instead. A flat face makes a far better datum than the floor of a hole, so the rocket comes back to the same height every time you set it down.

Both halves are broken at the lead-in — 0.5 mm off the bottom edge of the peg, a matching break around the mouth of the bore — so the joint finds itself without being aimed.

0.4 mmis the whole of the fit — everything the bore has that the peg does not.

Section through the joint between rocket and pedestal The blue rocket body ends in a flat face that rests on the rim of the gold hub, with its peg hanging inside the hub’s bore and stopping short of the bottom. Ø12.4 mm bore 10 mm deep 2 mm of air under the peg Ø12 mm peg 8 mm of it inside the rim takes the load
Section through the joint, drawn to scale from the model. The peg locates; the flat face carries.
The blue boattail and its three fins seated on the gold hub, with the green petals spread underneath.
Seated: the boattail’s flat underside on the hub rim, fins clear of the petals.

Four colours, no paint

There is no paint on this object. Each colour is its own piece, so every colour you see is the plastic itself, all the way through.

  • Rocket nose 1.8 in

    One ogive curve from the seam to the tip, sitting flush on the tube with nothing to line up.

  • Rocket body 4.4 in

    3 fins, 2 raised bands around the tube, and the peg underneath. The tallest thing here.

  • Lotus hub 1.2 in

    A 3.6° taper that wedges into the throat of the bloom, bored into the top for the peg.

  • Lotus petals 1.0 in

    14 petals in two rings — 8 lying out flat, 6 standing up inside them — and the widest thing here.

The four parts held apart in a vertical column: teal nose, blue body, gold hub and green petals.
The stack, pulled apart along the one axis it goes together on.

What arrives

  • Overall size4.3 × 4.3 × 7.1 in
  • Weight1.8 oz
  • MaterialPETG