The Qyramid was the Quantum Technology Club’s project for 2024-25 that broke cover at Liverpool MakeFest 2025. In this post we’ll take a bit of a deeper look into what it is and how it was designed.
What is the Qyramid?
Qyramid is a triangular pyramid, otherwise known as a tetrahedron.
How big is it?
Each of Qyramid’s edges are made of a number of 1m long beams. We can use between two and six beams to make a functioning unit. Using a bit of maths (we like maths) height = (edge length * √6) ÷ 3, so our five beam Qyramid is about 4m (12′) high. We had planned to use 6 beams per side, making it about 4.8m high – but that was too large for the stage we had.
How is the Qyramid designed?
Each of the 1m beams consist of two light segments, one at each end of a semi-opaque 3D printed tube. The light segments contain seven neo-pixels (programmable LEDs) facing towards the middle of the tube and three facing towards the end cap. The Qyramid we assembled for Liverpool MakeFest 2025 consisted of 600 neo-pixels.
All most all of the black material making up the beams was 3D printed on several members’ Bambu Lab PS1 devices. This ensured that tolerances between printers were known and could be built into the design. The only parts that weren’t printed were three thin plastic conduit tubes per beam.
That’s it for 2024-25
Thanks go to everyone who contributed to the project – well done on another really successful year. You’ve all deserved a good summer break.