Fun 3D Print Play

3D printing takes a twist on a childhood classic with new and fun 3D print shapes for bubble wands. A fun project involving 3D print play things like bubble wands and bubble machines that makes for a good school project or a fun Labor Day Weekend project before the kids all head back to school. Beat the summer heat designing and 3D printing your own wand shapes, then have a little fun outside testing them out.

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Fun 3D Print Play

It is almost Labor Day, and we are checking out tomorrow because our 2 year old is off day care for the next couple of days. I started to think about what fun things, because we are going to have her by herself for a couple of days, what kind of fun things we can do. One of her favorite things is blowing bubbles. This got me thinking about the shapes of the bubble wands. Could we 3D print different bubble shapes? How much fun would that be?

I did some searching out there. My favorite one that is just totally cute and simple seems like a great project that you could really accomplish this weekend. That is the Heart Bubble Wand from Shapeways by NChandler.

Fun 3D print by NChandler on Shapeways

I have given a lot of thought to this because bubbles are a big thing in our household with our girls. The reality is I always thought that since a bubble always ends up a sphere, so what is going to happen if you start with a bubble wand shape that is not a sphere? Is it going to be harder or easier to make bubbles? Maybe it doesn’t really matter, as long as it holds enough bubble soap stuff within it. I have to print this; I could maybe make one or download one and try this out myself. That got me thinking. This fun 3D print is from Shapeways which is really cute and simple. The end of the bubble wand is cute, and what little girl is not going to love that?

They could be princess crowns or all kinds of shapes if this works. It is such a great school project. I am a boy and I might want a shape of a skull or something more Halloween-ish because that is coming up in a couple of months. This is such a cool project idea for you to do yourself. I started to say that is really more than what I can handle this week. Maybe I will just go and download something.

I started to look into it and I came across the bubble bucket on Thingiverse. The designer of this is Scratchhax and it is the coolest thing. You’ve got a big Home Depot tub filled with bubbles. It is sort of a Home Depot hack of a five gallon bucket, like a five gallon paint bucket or mop bucket, and put your solution of bubble stuff in there and then dips it in the bubbles and a motor pulls it up and they have got a fan on it that is blowing through it and it is like, wow. This is like serious homemade bubble machine type of stuff.

There is a video that is really cool. I can’t tell you how many times I have dipped the thing in, blown on it. The two year olds will go nuts. The two year olds in the neighborhood would flock to your house. It would entertain them all through the Labor Day picnic with this. This is like the supped up version, I totally love it. It is a completely awesome bubble machine. That one is a really fun 3D print.

Fun 3D print for ultimate bubble making by Jost Schenk on Pinshape

The other one is, we used to do Labor Day parades and stuff and things like that with our bikes. We decorate them and put things on them there were all like red, white, and blue like 4^th of July. We’d decorate our bikes and just hang out in the neighborhood and run around for the picnic. This fun 3D print is a bubble machine that you attach to your bicycle. It is really cool. It looks like you mount this thing and just due to the riding the bike forward and the wind, that is created opposite to you going forward, the wind pushing back actually turns a fan which rotates these bubble ones through water. The only flaw I see in this is the bubbles end up on my face from riding my bike around the neighborhood.

Actually, I think I have it behind them, attached behind the seat. This one is on Pinshape, it is very cool and it is free download. Why not check I tout and try it out. It comes from Jost Schenck. I think that one is really cool. I saw another one of these bubble machines from John Jonmes and it is free also. It has a Superman shape on it, like the shield. This one has the skull already on it but it has a whole little mechanism. This one is really cool. Wouldn’t that look cool mounted on the back of your bike?

Now let’s think about this fun 3D print idea as a learning opportunity for the education set out there. Bubbles are fun, harmless, no one got in trouble blowing bubbles in high school or elementary school. Some of these that you point out are mechanical as well as cool looking. You are talking about learning about motion end gear, linkages, and even one of them had almost like a ratio. Like a bicycle chain, very small sprocket on the rear and a large sprocket at the front, learning about how ratios of rotation affect things. There are so many great things you can learn. It seems like all of the different components of all these different designs that you are pointing to are not very complex 3D models to print.

John Jonmes created this fun 3D print set of superhero bubble wands on Pinshape.

Even take this simple bubble wand from the very beginning, it is essentially flat with some gaps obviously because it has to keep the sections and soak up the bubble stuff. Even that is a physics thing for kids to learn, is that how close together do those spaces need to be in the little bubble wand in order to soak up the right amount of bubble soap so it works? If it is too close together it may not soak it well, if it is too far apart it might not soak it well. It must have the right distance and optimum design. This is a wealth of learning opportunities.

The textural properties, the fact that that is grabbing bubbles, if I make it more shallow and more textured, what happens if I change that? Is it more consistent when it picks up the bubbles? Will it make bigger or smaller bubbles? If you are a teacher and you want to inspire the kids to have fun experimenting and learning about the different properties whether it is engineering principles or a physics principle or a combination of them. There are so many ways that you can take this depending on what you are trying to teach as a teacher, or maybe you can look at the way the students go in terms of the different learning opportunities. Give them some parameters to stay within. Other than that, go for it.

It is fantastic. It is so much better than these like, we went to Disney recently and got one of those bubble wand things that plays a horrendous amount of music. It is battery operated torch with bubble coming out of the top. It lights up and does all the stuff but the thing broke almost instantly. At the end of the day, if you can come up with a more mechanical way to do it, you learn something, it is really cool and it will likely last longer.

I think the whole point especially with kids, this is true of our kids as well, they are interested in this stuff, they are curious about it. We are working with 3D printers and with CAD software all the time. But still, if you want to get engaged and focused. You got to really do it. I am thinking about recently I remembered printed out this Minion chess set for our nephew. Our daughter was interested to help me with that. She couldn’t wait to take off and help scrape off the supports. I rarely do prints with supports. I didn’t create them. I download them. It is a rare moment. I modified it to give the chess piece a little weight on the bottom with a washer and giving it a wider base. It is modified.

Everything did need support material to print. To her, she was learning about 3D printing. “What do you mean support material? Oh, it has to build this up in order to build this other piece above.” It is like the arms of the minion are hanging down and it was unsupported from the bottom so it had to build some supports eventually connecting the arms to the body. So many things, if you can make it fun, the bubbles are great idea and characters are great too.

I love the bubble thing because bubbles are so universal. It always puts a smile on people’s faces. Everyone wants to pop them. I can’t wait to see Vanessa’s face this weekend when we are blowing bubbles. That is my plan to have a fun 3D print bubble day.

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Fun 3D Print Play

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