9 year old wants a 3D printer…is it a good gift or pointless?

[Gagamama2]

9 year old turning 10 in a couple of weeks and has requested a 3D printer. Budget would be around the £200 mark, can you get anything worthwhile for this or would it be a waste of money?

Can kids easily print things of use or does it just make pointless plastic junk?! He doesn’t have a laptop or phone, only an iPad, so not sure how much he will be able to design himself. Are there places you can go to print off other people’s designs of things? But if you are just doing this then is there any point to it as doesn’t seem v creative?

any views / thoughts v appreciated. This would be a big and v expensive present for us to give to him and don’t want it to be a waste of money. Thanks

I’d ask him to show me what sort of things he’s wanting to design and print and go from there?
check it’s compatible with his iPad but also that his iPad has the capabilities of designing what he’s got in mind.
I think if it’s a potential hobby he’s really interested in, and has thought through, I’d let him.

It sounds a bit of a gimmick. If just using it to print pointless, plastic crap that will be discarded than I'd say no

And there's a safety issue. You know they get really hot. You have to have adequate ventilation because of the harmful fumes from the heated plastic. This isn't just a child toy you can leave him to run alone in his bedroom. Microplastics e t c.

you are not meant to have them near people. But then they're also a fire risk and you keep having to go and check on it. Do you have a room like that with adequate ventilation, where you can just leave it alone away from people. Then of course you wont be able to go out because you can't leave it running. You have to check on it because it's a fire hazard.

All for a child who would probably have no idea what to do with one if he got one.

Not worth it.

yes, there are places you can go to print off other people’s designs.

my ExH got one. He mostly used it to print random plastic crap.

a 3Dpen is much easier to use and you can still make fun stuff with it. something like this

amzn.eu/d/dQMNnXF

3D printers are cool but 90% of your time is spent on manipulating some very fiddly software that takes a long time to learn, rather than on printing stuff.

This sounds like good advice, I wouldn’t bother op

I'd check his expectations. Some things can take days to print i think. How much patience does he have? Then there's the fuck ups.

Maybe a pen to see how he gets on?

Yes but try a compromise. A large part of my childhood I heard it was too much hassle and not to bother. It can get to you when you don't understand why.

These are all my fears about it, so thank you for confirming them!!

no I don’t think he would really know what to do with it aside from print random pre-designed crap stuff.

his friend had one gojng when we went round their house the other day and he was mesmerised with it. Seeing something built from nothing is pretty cool. But I don’t think the interest will be sustained. Also there was a shoe box next to it full of stuff that had gone wrong which was a massive turn off 😂🙈.

if he was a bit older, had a laptop, and had the focus to learn CAD then I would buy it for him. But he is ADHD and I’m not sure the hyperfocus would last long enough to actually learn how to design things.

3D pen is a great suggestion as an alternative, will look into that.

I also was advertised something called a BeaverBot the other day on Facebook, which is basically a scroll saw without a blade to cut cardboard. I can def see him and his sister using that as they make stuff out of cardboard boxes all the time, so might consider that as a joint gift instead.

We love ours. My son wanted one when he was 10. He designs and prints a bunch of superhero stuff; he’s printed an iron man, an R2D2 etc. Then he sands them, assembles, sprays and paints them. It takes hundreds of hours and is a great hobby.

We also play dungeons and dragons and warhammer so we use it to print out buildings and terrain which would be too difficult to make out of foam like we normally do.

It really doesn’t get hot. The base plate heats to 60 degrees and the tip of the plastic extender heats to 200 degrees. Nothing else gets hot, it isn’t dangerous to touch. And you don’t touch it anyway. Never had any fire and don’t know anyone who has, and everyone in our warhammer and DnD circles have 3D printers. I’ve left mine running when I’ve been out of the house. I pause it and turn it off if I’m going out for a long time; make sure you buy a printer with a restart print option.

He will need a laptop/desktop or access to one though. And he doesn’t have to design anything for now; you can buy or use free designs from others and still have the creativity part from the painting.

We have several. We don't even let the 14yo use it due to the chemicals. They aren't toys. You shouldn't have them in bedrooms for example.

If a 14 year old cannot safely use a 3D printer then that is very concerning.

thank you for your reply, it’s good to hear a range of feedback. My son’s friend def loves his to be fair.

What do you use to design stuff, and could your son at 10 use the programs mostly himself or was it more him coming up with ideas and you actually designing them? Do you know if anyone designs on an iPad rather than a laptop?

Of course she can use it safely. We don't let her due to the chemical fumes. Two completely different things. If you want your kids playing with toxic chemicals your choice

We run a 3D printing business. We have to have higher standards.

What’s your view on 3d pens, do they also give off fumes? Would they be safe to use for a 10 year old?

No more dangerous than a glue gun.

Your kid can safely operate a 3D printer without being anywhere near the printer while it operates. Fumes are not an issue. It should be in a separate, ventilated room. My garage is my metal working workshop, so it’s already set up with ventilation etc and we just run our printers out there. But you can run it in a spare room in your house as long as you ventilate, and there is no need at all to be anywhere near the printer while it operates (other than a quick look to check it hasn’t gone wrong).

There are different design softwares, and some are made for kids to learn through so it’s worth YouTubing a few. It would be a learning experience for him. My son didn’t know anything about CAD design so had to learn from scratch but it’s been really useful. They use 3D printers in art at their high school and he’s gone in way ahead of the other kids as he has spent a few years learning.

There are two main types of 3d printer. The plastic ones which are safer and the resin ones which are dangerous and use horrible chemicals. I think there is a bit of confusion because people aren't explaining which one they have had experience with. Resin printers are not any good for kids.
We have a bamboo mini for our 10 year old and it is brilliant. He has been printing stuff for his mates and selling it to them and prints loads of figures to paint. It is easy to use and relatively safe. No obvious fumes. Agree with the other poster though, you will need a laptop or desktop. You can use tinker cad to make designs to print. It's very easy to use, just drag and drop 3d shapes and thee are lots of creative commons licensed things to start you off, which you can modify without paying for them.

DD1 had a 3D pen and got so frustrated with it really quickly as it takes skill to produce something other than spaghetti. On the other hand she's used Tinkercad (free website based software) and internet tutorials to design 3D printed models for her and her friends - usually based off Roblox or Minecraft which are fairly user-friendly and blocky in appearance anyway.

We have a Bambu A1 Mini which is about as user friendly as they currently are - you still need to unblock them occasionally though which is a slight learning curve - but both my kids can print stuff just fine on it from their phones or iPads, and send it from the computer via slicer software if it needs finer tuning.

As for fumes - you want the type of printer that prints the plastic filament (plastic string stuff basically), NOT a resin printer which is the nasty stuff, and just PLA filament as the most user friendly and least fumey stuff around - when you get into printing some of the more technically demanding filament types is when the fumes become an issue but you wouldn't be printing them on an open sided bed slinger without ventilation anyway.

PLA filament printers (like yours) still give off fumes. PLA is better than other filaments, and filament printers are better than resin but they still give off fines which cause respiratory problems. They need to be in a ventilated room and absolutely should not be in a bedroom.

You can’t say “no obvious fumes” when they literally do give off fumes and this is made quite clear. I hope it isn’t in your son’s room and he is using it safely.

It's not in his bedroom. It is in a well ventilated room. Thanks for the info. Will do some more reading to check it is well ventilated enough

3D printers are absolutely fine for tweens/teens and a great resource to learn how to use. Can provide endless entertainment as well. My son designed a board game and printed the pieces he needed as well as the usual DnD stuff. It’s great fun.

Just use it safely, and they absolutely can learn to use it safely. There really isn’t any risk then.

3D printing is killing creativity and filling the world with more plastic. Maybe investigate other ways to make stuff with him.

Agree, at the level my son would use it anyway. Will revisit when he is older, has a laptop and the patience to learn cad…then I can see the benefits.

have bought a BeaverBot instead as a joint gift for him and his sister who is turning 8. It’s like a scroll saw, but for cutting cardboard and without a blade so they can use it unsupervised. They make a lot of stuff out of cardboard and so I think will get a lot of creative use out of it (I hope) plus materials for it are the cardboard delivery boxes we always have in the recycling anyway so no waste there