I used to print quite a lot of toys for my kids, but I stopped doing that, since it feels mostly like a waste of plastic.
3D printed toys are rarely enjoyable. The toys are usually either not interesting enough (think static, non-movable, single-color figurines like the low-poly-pokemon series), or not durable enough or both at the same time.
My kids liked the printed toys when they got them, but they barely looked at them after like 10 minutes and then they ended up rolling around the house until they broke, usually very soon.
I love 3D printing, I use it a lot for all sorts of things, but toys are just not a very good application for 3D prints, in my opinion. It’s just not worth the plastic.
Edit: Just for context: I’ve been around the block with 3D printing. I started about 7 years ago and I’ve been the 3D printer repair guy for my circle of friends ever since, fixing up everyone else’s printers. I design most of the things I print myself. The reason I am posting this is because pretty much everyone I know who has a printer and kids prints toys all the time, and any time I’m at any event where someone can shoehorn a box of give-away low-poly-pokemon in, there is one there.
IMO, this is all plastic waste and nothing else.
Yeahhhh, the makerspace I work at gets constant requests for these kinda things and it irritates me to no end… Totally feel your frustration.
I get the same from friends. Just last week someone asked me to print a bunch of low-poly-pokemon as a gift for some kid. And I know the kid’s gonna look at them for 5 minutes and then toss it in a corner to rot.
In advance, I always plan to at least make them from biodegradable PHA so I’m not contributing to micro plastics. But also I hate wasting my precious PHA on it, because the stuff is so hard to get lol
First I’ve heard of pha. Thanks!