Introduction

Today is my twelfth birthday (Jan 31st) and what better time to finally announce my long awaited, six months in the making cable car project that I call: Project: Cable car. This project is incredibly special to me for a number of reasons. For example, this is my biggest, longest, most ambitions project yet, it's my 2025 Christmas project as well, it's going to be my last project designed on Tinkercad and most importantly, I've learnt something that you can't learn inside a classroom throughout these 6 months (Go to the end of Design process to find out more).

Inspiration

This idea for this project came right after my family's last summer vacation, where we went to visit Paris and Switzerland. As you might know, Switzerland has a ton of cable cars, since so many places in that country are so high up. During our trip there, I think we took more than 2 different types of cable cars and at least 5 different round trip cable car journeys. Of course, Hong Kong also has cable cars, but the ones in Switzerland were just so different and similar at the same time. The Swiss one's looked so big and modern, while the cable cars back in Hong Kong were quite old and small. But no matter how different they look, there will always be one thing that all cable cars have in common: The way they work. All gondola cable cars have multiple stations to pick up and drop off passengers, a motor that turns a wheel that turns a steel cable (Which the cable car is connected to), therefore making the cable car move and several steel towers to support the steel cable over longer distances. The moment we arrived at home, the idea just popped into my head, and I knew that it was it. I'm going to design a cable car project as my 2025 Christmas project. 

Design process

After deciding that this was going to be 2025 Christmas project, I got to work designing immediately. Meaning that this project officially start at the start of August, 2025. Although I had some other mini projects throughout August and November 2025 (Dice series, custom mouse and International Evening carnival games), I still spent basically everyday on CAD designing the first design of everything, while also researching Swiss cable cars and taking inspiration from the model: Custom Length Ski Chairlift by Darts 3D on Makerworld. 

After 3 months of designing on CAD and completing International Evening, I got to printing immediately. I printed all the basics first, like the stations, motor compartments, support pillars, etc, but then I got too excited and rushed that I printed basically everything else in my design. Not only was this a huge mistake, since everyone who does CAD knows that nothing ever works first time, but it was also so annoying, since everything required huge amounts of supports, meaning the print time for most of the parts were over 7 hours. Not only that, but because there were so many supports and my design was so fragile, everything kept breaking while I was trying to remove the supports and I had to keep wasting filament over and over again. 

Finally, after some perseverance, one set of the "basic parts" finally didn't break. But the pain and suffering didn't there. Literally everything in this first design was not working. After that, I just made minor refinements to the motor compartment and just trialed and errored for an entire month. By the time the motor compartment finally worked and the wheel actually spun like it should, it was already the beginning of December. This made me slightly nervous that I wouldn't make it in time for Christmas, but I just ignored that thought and kept pushing.

Then, another problem stopped me from advancing. When I put the string on the wheel, the string just wouldn't move. We tried using rubber bands, but the string just kept slipping and it just wouldn't grab the rubber band properly. Then, I just wasted two weeks trying to fix this issue without any success, and in a blink of an eye, I'm in Yun Nan China for Christmas vacation. When we came back, it was already December 20th and I had no hope of finishing this project in time for Christmas. I felt so down. 

When I finally built up the courage to keep trying, I asked my dad for help, and we spent the next three hours just testing my existing design and finding all the problems. After that, it was just full steam ahead. I listened to my dad and made the fixes on CAD and it finally worked. The string moved so smoothly and the cable car started moving. I was so happy and proud. I was like, I won't make it in time for Christmas, but maybe the New Year was still an option. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh how wrong was I. This design was supposed to be customizable in length, and oh how much I underestimated how many new obstacles would get in my way after extending the length of the entire thing. Everything just stopped working again. The string kept getting jammed. The cable car just wouldn't go over the support pillars. The string just kept slipping off the rubber band again. It was like everything I did for the past 5 months were just completely useless, that the universe just didn't want me to succeed. At this point, I didn't even have a target deadline anymore, I just wanted to finish this project as fast as possible and move on.

Another thing that slowed down my progress was actually by Birthday present.  Since I asked for a brand new desk setup for my birthday, I had to spend some time designing some desk accessories to match and use with my new setup. These designs were urgent since my room and desk would be a complete mess without them, so I had to print them first. Then, the worst thing that could happen, happened. Since the temperature in Hong Kong suddenly drop drastically, the prints for my desks just kept failing because of severe warping. This turned a 4 day print job into rolls of wasted filament and weeks of failed prints. 

When the desk accessories finally finished printing, we got back to work. The problem I previously mentioned was still there. And there was only about two weeks before my birthday, I know I said I didn't have a deadline anymore, but I still wanted to launch this on my birthday. To be honest, I still don't really get how I solved the cable car and string jamming issue, because all I remember was that I kept trying, even after dozens of trial and error, and eventually, it just worked.

January 30th is and will forever be the day that Project: Cable car finally worked. After all that pain, all that suffering, the ups, the downs, it finally cam together.

I didn't have to write these 9 paragraphs about how I designed this model. But I did it because I wanted to send one message to the CAD designing community: The reward will always be greater than the pain you endured to get to it. This is a precept that I created specifically for when people are designing 3D printing projects. I created this precept because for the past 6 months, and basically past year, I've learnt and experienced so much because of this hobby. Although most of it are down, like anxiety, depression and basically sh*t (Especially because I have to balance this hobby with my school work and my parents' and my own high academic expectations), I still manage to push through. Ask any CAD designer or Engineer and they'll tell you the same thing: Halfway through a project, they wake up everyday feeling like all of their past efforts and work towards this project or design has been pointless. It's like god himself just doesn't want them to succeed. But nevertheless, they still keep trying, keep pushing. Why? The reason is simple: It''s because we know that if we just keep trying, we'll eventually succeed.  And when you finally do, nothing beats that feeling. It's absolutely surreal. Knowing that all the pain and suffering finally paid off. It a feeling you can't describe, you have to experience it to know what it feels like. The only thing that I can say about it is that it's pure joy and pride and no matter how long it lasts, it will always be the best feeling in the world. And that's what I wanted to share, that no matter what, if you just keep going, that feeling of success at the end, it's like no other.

Conclusion

This is it, I finally launched my cable car project and I am so proud and happy. This means that I can finally move on and upload soem of the other designs that I've made during these 6 months. Once again, hope you like it, sorry I couldn't make it in time for Christmas 2025, good luck removing the supports for this model (You'll need it and superglue as well), hope you also appreciate the amount of effort and work I've put into this design, remember, no matter what, never give up, and you'll get what you deserve and well Tinkercad, farewell, I'll miss you, and thank you for everything you've allowed me to achieve.🫡

Special notices

-The string tension is key to making this design work. Make sure it's not too tight that it doesn't move, but not too lose that it's drooping.

-Superglue the cable car to the string for the best result.

-Handle the prints for this model with immense care. They break very easily.

-The print with a small hole at the top (Cable car (2).stl) is used to keep the motor in place. Place it over the top of the motor rod that's sticking out (The top side of the motor compartment).

-The motor compartment is supposed to slide in the station with the control room.

-Christmas and Normal extension is not required for this model to work.

Extra Information/links/references:

-This model requires a motor. Please purchase one here: 

[https://e.tb.cn/h.Tnhz1NarBQxspNt?tk=KuGIeUZ1J3N](https://e.tb.cn/h.Tnhz1NarBQxspNt?tk=KuGIeUZ1J3N)

-Like I said, this model is inspired by Swiss cable cars, but also Custom Length Ski Chairlift by Darts 3D on Makerworld. Check him out here: 

[https://**********.com/en/models/847017-custom-length-ski-chairlift?from=search#profileId-896260](https://**********.com/en/models/847017-custom-length-ski-chairlift?from=search#profileId-896260)