Comment on Hot take: 3D printing toys kinda sucks
monotremata@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
I dunno. I agree with this to some extent for sure–I don’t print a lot of the meme models that are everywhere on 3d printing forums. But there are toys that would not exist without 3d printing that I think are pretty great.
I designed a kaleidoscope that reflects things not to tile a plane, but instead to tile the surface of a disdyakis triacontahedron: imgur.com/gallery/i-made-kaleidoscope-P4atHey I had to cut the mirrors from acrylic by hand, but the templates for them and the shell that holds them in place are all 3d printed. And that thing is a pretty great toy.
This thing: imgur.com/…/make-of-cyclidial-iris-by-vergo-henry…
is a math sculpture that I didn’t design, just printed, but it’s completely beautiful, and it’s had real staying power as both a toy and a decoration. It sits out on our coffee table all the time, but my niece plays with it every time she’s over here.
And this puzzle box I designed: imgur.com/…/i-made-puzzle-box-nieces-birthday-U1q…
was a big hit with her too. I’m not sure if she’ll continue to play with it long-term, but based on my own tendencies as a kid, I think she might end up investigating the mechanisms involved for some time to come.
Things that you could buy at the store you’re generally better off buying at the store. But there are things it’s not economical to mass produce, and it never used to be possible to design and make your own toys. Both ideosyncratic toys and bespoke toys are pretty great uses of 3d printing in my opinion.
StellarExtract@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
That kaleidoscope is awesome! I kinda want to make one.
monotremata@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
Thanks! I haven’t actually published these pieces yet. (Well, the slide-glide cyclide thing was published by someone else, but I think it was later taken down–there may be plans for the original mathematician to sell them?) The puzzle box is just a little too kluged together to really publish; I modified a lot of things after the fact to get it together, and I’m not comfortable publishing it in that state, but I also don’t really want to put in the work to finish it. The kaleidoscope would actually be okay, but it’s limited–it’s a bit tricky to actually cut the mirrors, and it really only works to reflect things right up against it. I want to design an adapter for it that will hold an acrylic sphere (which you can get inexpensively from China) so that you can use it to look at scenes as well. But I haven’t actually gotten around to that yet either. I’ll give some thought to publishing it as-is, though.