I got to the front door to find a box that was smaller than I expected. What was inside was a 3D printer for children called the ToyBox. It's a printer redesigned from the ground up to be easy to work with, low on maintenance, and approachable by children.
I opened the box, took off the copius packing, plugged it in, and turned it on. Then I downloaded the app, created an account, and logged in. I told it I had a new printer and then it saw the printer. It asked to connect to the Wifi and then we were connected and ready to go.
That is unheard of. I have several printers but more than that, I know about lots and lots of printers because from a media perspective, I spend almost all of my time consuming videos, websites, reviews, and anything else about 3D printing. I've become sort of a nerd when it comes to 3D printing. It's not that other printers couldn't do the same thing, but it's more of a hobbyist field at this point and people want a printer they can modify, upgrade, tinker with and change about. Plug and play doesn't fit into that model.
And that's okay. But for a family who wants to get children interested in 3D printing, this little ToyBox is a pure delight. Not only was it easy to set up, once I'd gotten the printer connected, I could click on all kinds of fun models and print them. My son would be all over this, picking the Minecraft models and robots to start and then branching out into the huge library of other models he could choose to print, all for free.
For my daughter, there is a drawing area. She could draw and then have her model printed into a printed squiggle. She did just this tonight. We can also take a picture and turn it into a raised version that could be printed and she could feel. Those two things alone are very special features other printers don't have, mostly because they're printers and not a printer with a child-focused app together.
I have my daughter's rarely-used iPad beside the printer and tomorrow she wants to do more drawings. My son wants to see what other Minecraft models are and I'm fairly certain he'll like lots of other things on the first page alone.
And it prints fast. Children don't want to wait five hours for a print so this printer is calibrated to print fast. Many models only take ten minutes, which is exceptionally fast. I had things to do today, but I kept coming back and sending more things to the little ToyBox because even though I'm an adult, it's a lot of fun to print with it.
The Big Boy Update: My son still has had no screens returned to him—all because he refuses to read three books. Tonight he created another game with customer medium-sized color-specific LEGO models. He and his father were mapping out gameplay when I came upstairs before bedtime.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter got new shoes the other day as well as some ankle boots she bought with her own money because she knows I like boots. We both agreed to wear our boots today. I've been trying to get her to wear boots for years. She looked so nice in them today, as opposed to the ratty sneakers she usually wears. She told me tonight she liked wearing them. I said I was wearing mine again tomorrow. I wonder if she'll wear hers too?
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