Alien Spaceship Container

Out of this world!
Have fun with this Alien Spaceship Container and whatever you choose to place inside. It is designed to hold tiny alien tessellation tiles, but certainly other small or strange items could be hidden within. Create your own alien invasion as the tiles come pouring out for additional play! Makes a great gift!

BONUS: Alien Invasion!
Heart Alien Tiny Tessellation tile included! This tessellation shape was designed with my nine-year-old daughter for Valentine’s Day gifts for her classmates. I designed the Alien Ship Container to hold 28 aliens; though with a little maneuvering, 40 will fill it up. (I recommend 35 or fewer.) A small box to hold 12 aliens is also available for download. See links below for my other tessellation models.

Alien Spaceship Container
The container has four parts (frame, inside, bottom, and top) each printed using single extrusion without supports. Print the inside using vase mode (or with as many perimeters as desired) and slip it into the frame from the wide end. The bottom part screws onto the frame to lock in the inserted piece. The top is the container lid at the narrow end. A bright color for the inserted piece enhances the bottom of the container to look like booster rockets or alien light sources. See additional print settings below.

Creating the vase mode insert was inspired by the Bi Box post on Cults3D by AF_inventions.

My Tessellation Collection

• Fish Tessellation with Box
• Turtle Tessellation with Box
• Elephant Tessellation with Box
• Evil Anchor Alien Tessellation with Box (different alien style)
• Heart Alien Tiny Tessellation with Box
• Gingerbread Tessellation with Box

Like Aliens? See my UFO Toy with Base

Together the container is approximately 79 x 79 x 83 mm.
I printed everything with 0.3 mm layer height and concentric external fill.
No supports. No rafts.

Frame: Note that to print the Frame without supports, it needs to be printed upside down (narrow end down). This is the default orientation of the saved STL file. I printed with 3 top and 3 bottom solid layers, 6 perimeters, and 20% infill. This bridged well on my printer, but be sure to preview the bridging sections to make sure it will not print detached perimeters.

Inside: The STL file for the Inside part is a solid model. Be sure to set this up with 0% infill and 0 top layers. I printed in vase mode with 3 solid bottom layers. I recommend using a bright color for maximum effect including having it show well through the bottom “ports.” Glow-in-the-dark filament could also be fun, but keep in mind that usually more perimeters create stronger glow.

Bottom: I printed this with 3 top and 3 bottom solid layers, 4 perimeters, and 10% infill.

Top: Same settings as the Bottom piece. This should be printed upside down and that is the default orientation of the STL file.

Important Note for Top: Ideally the hexagon of the top will align with the walls of the frame when the container is fully closed. My original lid over-rotated quite a bit. To adjust it I thickened the head toward the threads slightly. I found that a 0.75 mm adjustment worked well for one print and the 0.5 mm adjustment worked well for another. I decided to include all four versions that I created (0, 0.5, 0.75, 1 mm) in case you would like to try different ones for a best fit. I recommend starting with the “0.75 mm adjustment” version.

Ruler for Scale available free at Cults3D.

Need to contain more aliens?
My Square Box with Lid was designed to hold 168 as a gift for a friend.