My 10yo has been designing his own chess pieces on paper. Last night we started putting them into cad to 3d print them. I’m doing the driving at this point, but he’s soaking it all in.
Most shapes are basic revolves. By the time we get to the end, I’m betting he’ll be clicking all the buttons.
I just had a friend come over with her son for some printing last weekend. He has been making transformers with tinkerCAD. He showed up with a bed full of robot parts with ball and socket snap together joints. Blew me away.
Might want to look at tinkerCAD he seemed to love it, but if you already started on something more advanced, stick to that.
If we had affordable CAD when I was a kid I would have given up lego a lot earlier.
My nephew got a 3d printer for Christmas last year. It’s one of the really small, kid oriented, ones, but he’s been enjoying it. He’s been using it a lot on some of his science projects this year. The first was he had to make a molecule. He 3d printed all the little beads and sticks to glue everything together. Then, more recently, he 3d printed a solar system.
I had offered to give him my older 3d printer after I finished the MP3DPv4, but my sister didn’t want it. Even with me helping him set it up.
I am a HUGE advocate for getting kids involved in various shop projects. Its quality time with them, and life skills they can use the rest of their life. Not to mention the critical thinking and multitsking etc. I have been blessed/cursed (depending on the moment) with three daughters. Thats no excuse. They still learn how to make and fix things.
That’s such a fun little bonding thing man. It’s like once the kids brain gets that lightbulb moment they can just run with it. Just getting them to that point can be a task lol.
The tinker cad is very fun and they do cool things like last week. Was build a wooden gravity car like in scouts. Then they race them digitally. They have some motion stuff as well.
Balloon cars would be a fun one to get a bunch of kiddos on.
So somewhere i saw where they printed a board like a puzzle it just snapped together. Make that with a frame and have your childs name in the pieces!!! What a keepsake! Congrats to you both!
We had to go back and modify some of the pieces. We found out that the board pieces are supposed to be tallest to shortest… King->Queen->Bishop->Knight->Rook->pawn.