Counter-Snap Mechanism

Interesting counter-snap mechanism I learned about from a Veritasium video.
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updated July 1, 2025

Description

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I was watching a video by Veritasium about this cool mechanism and wanted to try it out.

I printed it in TPU for the bendy parts and ABS for the links. I scaled the model up by 250% when printing, I didn't calibrate the canvas in fusion correctly.

I couldn't get it to work as it did in the video. Will probably work with enough tweaks and reprints, though.  It was fun to make. All files are in here, including the fusion 360 file.

 

Veritasium video: 

 

Paper on the mechanism: 

https://amolf.nl/publications/exotic-mechanical-properties-enabled-by-countersnapping-instabilities

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Model origin

The author remixed this model.

Differences of the remix compared to the original

I used screenshots from Veritasium video then imported into Fusion 360 to make the models.

 

License