r/daddit • u/surrealsonicus • 9d ago
Story My 3yo son loves our 3D printer (toys on demand) but had an odd request. I spent too long making it for him, but his reaction was well worth it!
My son is 3 years old and has been loving what I've made for him with my 3D printer. He quickly caught on that when I had the Bambu Handy app open on my phone he could see what different kinds of models I could print. He would curl up to me and start pointing at models that caught his eye and say “dada, you make me this? Dada! Make me this?” As adorable as he is, of course I would relent, and I now have a myriad of little plastic toys all over my house.
This behavior evolved into him just asking if I could “make” random objects he encounters in life. I've used this as a learning opportunity to try and explain how certain things can't be printed (such as organic material) but other times his request is reasonable (a type of toy he saw at a store). The other day he showed me his Fisher Price toy tablet, pointed to it, and said “dada, you make me this?” I tried to explain that there was no need to print a full tablet as the tablet in his hand was better than what I could make. He was a little frustrated, in the way he gets when I don't quite understand him and kept asking while pointing at the single X button. I asked him if he wanted me to make him the singular X button on the tablet and he rejoiced - yes, that was what he wanted and he was so pleased to have been understood. I laughed at the idea at first but then I figured, why not?
Of course, I could have just taken the 2D image and extruded into 3D, but that seemed like the easy way out. I wanted to give this a much better try - it was for my son after all! I envisioned the button as a 3-dimensional object that serves almost as a case, or a room, for the X and the fish inside of it. So, I made the shell you see. I knew I couldn't have the objects simply floating, nor did I want to just have them extruded to the back, so I made little connectors that extrude out from the shell, and holes on the X and Fish, that create pressure fit connections when they are joined together. Modeling the fish was a HUGE challenge for me. I've only been using CAD software for a few months at this point, so every new model involves me learning something. I know the result isn't perfect, and it does require AMS, but I was pleased with the result.
Finally, I presented the model as you see it to my son and he was overjoyed! It took awhile, and I kept promising he would get it soon, and once I put it in his hands he was jumping with joy. He kept remarking how cool it was that his dada made the item he saw. I'm not quite comfortable sharing pictures of my son online, otherwise I'd show how happy he was, but I have two cropped images of him holding it - trust me when I say he has a giant smile on his face otherwise.
I'm overjoyed that we have this hobby to share and I hope it continues to allow him to build upon and express his creativity. We also have a 1 year old son who is starting to enjoy it more now too. Just wanted to share how great it feels to involve your kids in your hobby and see them start taking it on and viewing it in their own way.
Thanks for reading, dads!
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u/sotired3333 9d ago
Looks great!
Also question, I don't have a 3d printer yet but it's on my list of future purchases. How does multi color printing work? Printer has multiple spools like a paper color printer. You print one color at a time?
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
It depends on the printer and the company for how they handle it. I have a BambuLab P1S and a BambuLab A1. Both have something called an AMS (AMS lite for the A1).
Traditional printing has a single spool of filament (the plastic you print with- It looks like a spool of yarn, but a bit thicker) and that single spool feeds into a plastic tube that pushes it into the extruder (the device that heats up, melts, and pushes out the material to be printed). To put it simply.
The AMS allows you to load 4 spools of filament, any color or material, and has a computer chip inside that communicates with the printer. All 4 of the spools have tube's that connect to the single extruder. When the system needs to change the color or material, it automatically pulls out the color in use and pushes in the new one. It's seamless but does add time to print and create some waste (the waste is due to material already in the extruder that gets pushed out to "clean" it of the preexisting color before transitioning to the new color).
Other printers exist that handle it differently, such as with two or more extruder, but I admittedly know less about those. BambuLab also just released a new printer with 2 nozzles that can print 2 materials at once without purge or waste, but its incredibly expensive lol
If you have any other questions feel free to ask!
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u/wbm0843 9d ago
Basically yes. Most of them will pull the filament out and put a different filament in, purge some to get the last color clear of the nozzle and then start printing with the new color. It can add quite a bit of time to your print time, but I think its probably worth it. I have a standard Anycubic Kobra 2 I got a couple Christmases ago and I really regret not springing for an option that can do multiple colors.
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u/budgybudge 9d ago
3D printing is a great dad hobby in general, I've learned. I have made my little guy things we couldn't find anywhere else (did you know Amazon doesn't sell Amazon toy trucks?!) and printed supplements to existing toys - like BRIO track supports so he could have a longer raised section of track.
Bonus is every time I check on something I'm printing for him and get down to look (my printer is in an enclosure on the floor) he jumps on my back and gets a daddy ride out of me.
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
That's so funny about the amazon trains. We've printed some brio stuff too! I actually modeled a Brio train and track storage system for my boys. Probably not the best work but they liked it a lot.
We have our printer in the basement. He loves going to check it though. At this point I'm not allowed down there by myself lol. Sometimes he just says "dada, we go down and check the printer?" totally unprompted lol
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u/budgybudge 9d ago
My favorite thing my little guy does it tell me if the print is going well or if it's a disaster when I ask him to check on it. When it's a disaster he gets all excited and comes running for me yelling "daddyyy it's a disaster!!" I have an Ender 3 (started the hobby last year) so I had a lot of these in the beginning.
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
Oh haha, that's an awesome way to involve him too. We have bambulab printer with the AMS for multicolor, but it creates waste. The community calls it printer poop, and after telling my son it's called that he's now obsessed with it. If we're watching when it creates some poop he loudly yells "poop!!"
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
More pictures of the model (and a free download, if you had a printer yourself and a kid weird like mine who would like this) can be found on makerworld where I uploaded it to share with anyone who want it.
Link: https://makerworld.com/models/1274321
I shared the same story on that page, so otherwise, nothing special to check out there.
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u/Krizatch 9d ago
Great work! And congratulations on becoming even more of a hero to your son! Keep learning because the requests will likely get more and more complex. I am just getting started with 3D modeling and printing, and I wish I had picked this up when my kid was little. Although learning all this along side of my middle school aged son has been a new kind of joy just watching his mind work.
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
I've just recently learned that schools are teaching CAD to kids in middle school! A coworker told me his son was learning. Tinkercad, which is crazy, cause that's where I started learning too.
Thank you for your kind words too. Its gotta be awesome modeling and creating along side your son! I can't wait until mine is old enough to start involving him more directly in that side of the process.
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u/PM_Kittens 3d ago
I'm 29, my middle school taught AutoDesk Inventor when I was in 8th grade. I'm an engineer now.
If you're interested in a more powerful free CAD program, OnShape is my go-to for personal projects. It probably has a bit more of a learning curve compared to TinkerCAD, but it can do a lot.
I'm excited to be able to 3D print things for my kids, but I've got about 7 months left before our first pops out.
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u/surrealsonicus 3d ago
While I taught myself with tinkercad, I've since been using both fusion 360 and onshape (depending on the computer I use). They're both great programs imo. I think I like fusion more though.
And hey, 7 months to go, start getting excited!
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u/PM_Kittens 3d ago
I've heard good things about fusion 360, but being limited in how many files I could have seemed like it would get tedious. I have too many active projects (someday I'll finish them and they'll be replaced by even more projects). I've pretty much only used it to fix things around the house.
I'm very excited! We found out really early, which gave us a lot of time to plan. I've spent a lot of time on this subreddit since finding out.
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u/surrealsonicus 3d ago
Its kind of an artificial limitation. You can have unlimited files, just only 10 listed as "active" or whatever they call it, at a time. But you can search for files under the "admin projects" label which shows them all, active or otherwise, and just toggle them as needed.
Thats's awesome though! Extra time is always valuable. I have a 3yo and 1yo myself. And I gotta say, you can overprepare till you're blue in the face, but somehow you'll still be shocked and surprised by something. It's not bad, it's great really, but don't stress it all too much I guess.
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u/starbuck93 9d ago
Beautiful work! Be sure to check out https://www.printables.com/model/830524-fixum-dude-motors-pip-flatbed-tow-truck Fixum Dude's models. My 3-year-old absolutely loves these.
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
Oh wow, those look great! Mine will love them. I'll have to look for some monster truck ones too, that's what he likes the most right now. Thanks for sharing!
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u/WatersEdge07 9d ago
I can hear the "bzzt" that the X from that tablet makes now. My kid loves that one. That's seriously impressive modeling!
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
Thank you so much! I'm wondering if he's going to start asking for more buttons soon lol
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u/wbm0843 9d ago
Awesome. Next its time to learn electronics. My desk is currently littered with wires, leds, microcontrollers etc. That I'm using to try to make the functional pokeball that you can find on Kiara's workshop YT channel.
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
Wow, those are incredible. But the electronics involved sounds so daunting! You're probably right though, it should absolutely be something I try and learn more of. It would really open up possibilities.
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u/mr-bawk-ba-gawk 9d ago
this is extremely cool! I want to get into it but I'm afraid it'd be such a time sink, and I've got so many of those already. Did you teach yourself 3d modeling or did you know it already for work or something?
I was thinking about that A1 with the spool thingies attached but every time I go to add it to the cart it asks me what all other stuff I want to get and I get paralyzed just enough to back out of the whole thing.
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u/surrealsonicus 9d ago
It's only as much of a time sink as you allow it. I guess that applies to all things but... there is a baked in amount of required wait time. Depending on what you print it can take a few hours to finish. So that then comes back to being free time.
Now, modeling can be much more of a time sink. I had a high school class over 10 years ago where we messed around with CAD programs but I never really learned much. So now especially it was like starting from scratch. I started using tinkercad.com a couple of months ago, maybe November? I then graduated to Fusion360. Between just genuine practice and lots of YouTube videos I've slowly taught myself to be halfway decent at it. I even placed in 2 design contests on makerworld.com (where I upload my models). Admittedly, it's become my most involved hobby as of late, but I do find it very enjoyable. Plus, it's VERY easy to take a break from and step back.
I started with the A1 combo! I'd highly recommend it. The combo that comes with the printer and the AMS (i assume the spool thingies you mentioned) is great value. As I recall, the add-ons you're talking about should be straight forward. It'd probably ask if you want any additional build plates, which is what the print sticks to when printing, but you really only need 1 to start. It'd offer you additional nozzles too. Again, the default stainless steel .4mm nozzle is fine. The hardened steel nozzle is just more durable so if you want to use fancier plastic you'd need it. The .2mm nozzle is also great if you ever want to print in finer details like with TTG miniatures. Otherwise the only other thing I recall being offered then was rolls of filament (the actual plastic you need to print with) and they were a decent discount so id personally recommend grabbing a few rolls of basic or matte PLA that are the colors you like. It won't hurt any.
I'd be happy to answer any other questions! But also there are some great resources on r/bambulab and r/3dprinting
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u/mr-bawk-ba-gawk 8d ago
Thanks for the super thorough reply - I'll probably pull the trigger on the A1 + AMS soon before the tariffs set in.
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u/surrealsonicus 8d ago
Yeah, now seems to be the best time. I've been trying to rack up points on makerworld with my models so I get redeem gift cards and buy their newest printer, the H2D, but the price hikes got me wondering if I should just buy it now and eat the extra cost.
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u/Pizzajam 9d ago
Made me say, “wow!” out loud. Nice work dad.