3D printers are great toys for adults and now relatively good, easy to use and relatively affordable. As already mentioned in this article (build your own Hörbert similar MP3 player) you can even print padlocks and fasteners.
Even wall mounts for swords and knives or even a closed housing for the 3D printer with the help of 2 Ikea lacquer side tables are no problem. But also the beloved children can profit from the toy 3D printer of the adults.
Table of contents:
- 3D printing - Toys for kids and Ikea hacks
- Marble run from the 3D printer
- Ikea Hack - Photo frame for Ikea Trofast shelf
- Ikea Chair Seat raiser with anti-tipper from the 3D printer
- Ikea Hack - Build your own play table for children
- Toys for Kids - Funny turtles, dinosaurs, elephants and rhinos to print by yourself
- Dinosaur Puzzle For Kids From The 3D Printer
3D printing - Toys for kids and Ikea hacks
Because besides toys, animals and figures from the printer, you can also upgrade furniture in the children's room relatively easily. Ikea upcycling ideas are also widely available on the Internet. So I simply designed a really stylish table lamp for the children's room from an old version of an Ikea table lamp and then printed it out with the 3d printer. Colour, decoration and function - everything can be adjusted individually. There are no limits.
A good 3D-printer 
, especially beginner models are available from about 200,-EUR (250 USD). The printing is mostly done with PLA-Filament (made of plastic which is obtained from regenerative sources, e.g. corn starch). This and other filaments are available on rolls of mostly 1 Kg in different colours and are priced around 20,- USD.
More informations about 3D printers can be found here:
3D Printers: Models, Software and Options
Here now some beautiful examples which I like very much.
Marble run from the 3D printer
Marble runs have been a very popular children's toy for ages. Often they are elaborately designed, brightly colored and designed to stick together themselves, so that you can change the course freely. In the meantime there are also extensions for printing Lego Duplo® bricks (Lego Duplo ). So you can put your own marble track and route on, under and through the colorful bricks. At Thingiverse you can download whole sets of different elements for your own marble run (see 3d printed marble run).
Simple straights, curves, tunnels, waves and steep descents. The selection and combination possibilities are almost limitless. I have printed a selection for my daughter and she is very enthusiastic about it. When printing with PLA I used a layer thickness of 0.3mm to speed up the printing time. The printing of 6 of the square elements takes a little more than 2 hours, but the result is quite respectable. The stones fit very well and fit tightly.
Ikea Hack - Photo frame for Ikea Trofast shelf
Some time ago I designed a small photo frame which fits exactly to the drawers of the Ikea Trofast shelf.
So each drawer on the shelf in the children's room shows what belongs in each drawer. Puzzles, tokens, cars, etc... Pedagogically valuable - because structure is everything.
The frames are simply placed in the middle of the drawers with a hot glue gun.
You need the Ikea TROFAST shelf (e.g. 292.284.70 / White / Dimensions: 99x56x44 cm / Incl. 9 drawers (800.892.39)).
The picture frame offers space for a 10x6 cm photo. I decided to make the photos a bit smaller and to laminate them with a hot laminator . Then trim the edges until the laminated photo fits perfectly into the frame.
The template for the 3D printing of the photo frame for the Ikea Trofast shelf can be downloaded here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3035462
Ikea Chair Seat raiser with anti-tipper from the 3D printer
The Tripp Trapp chair for our little one had served its time after 2 years. Now she absolutely wanted to sit on a real chair, just like mum and dad. Since our Ikea chairs in the dining room, like most other chairs, are still too low for children to sit properly, a solution had to be found.
Without further ado I measured the legs of the chair and created a corresponding template for the 3D printer. For each of the 4 chair legs a small base, which lifts the chair by 3cm.
At the hind legs a tilt protection was added to prevent the child from falling over, especially if the child pushes away from the table. Felt glides were glued under the pedestals.
A simple and effective solution from the 3D printer. Cost: a few cents!
Ikea Hack - Build your own play table for children
With an Ikea Lack side table and one of the deep drawers of an Ikea Trofast shelf, you can build a beautiful children's console in no time at all. Simply saw a corresponding opening in the table surface and fit the drawer in.
Some people take it to extremes by printing extensions or attachments for the table with the 3D printer. I have left it here for the time being with a quite simple variant. The insert is currently used alternately as a bearing for building blocks and Lego Duplo bricks .
Toys for Kids - Funny turtles, dinosaurs, elephants and rhinos to print by yourself
In the various portals for 3D print templates you can find as already mentioned all kinds of toys, figures, vehicles and so on. The list is endless, but from time to time I would like to present some 3D-prints that I tried and liked.
The user jakejake published the templates for funny little turtles on thingiverse.com under the name Squishy Turtle. These are printed in 2 parts (body and shell) and connected with H-connections from the 3D-printer . 6 different tank designs are included for free. Some more are available for a small Paypal donation (I think almost 3,- USD) on the page of the creator of the turtle designs.
Printed out the whole thing looks like this - where I printed the turtle links with 0.2mm resolution or layer thickness, and the turtle right with 0.3mm. I would recommend 0.2mm, so the printing takes almost twice as long (depending on the printer about 3.5 hours per turtle), but the result is simply better and the parts fit better and more seamlessly together.
If you search at Thingiverse.com for e.g. Animal you will find a lot of beautiful templates of cute little animals like elephants, rhinos, frogs and much more that will make children's hearts beat faster. Best of all, such a new toy costs only a few cents. So it's just the thing for in between, not just for the money savers.
Dinosaur Puzzle For Kids From The 3D Printer
A nice puzzle for kids from the 3D printer. It consists of 5 dinosaurs and a dinosaur egg, which you can print in different colors and sizes. You can download the whole thing in STL format here.
I printed the dinosaur puzzle with a layer thickness of 0.2mm and conventional PLA in red, green, yellow, blue and purple. You have to keep in mind that the proportions in the STL files are a bit too big at least for my printer. Since my printer can "only" print 20x20x20 cm, I had to scale down the dinosaurs proportionally. This is easy with Ultimaker Cura, for example. Here I lowered the Z-axis the thickness of the dinosaur from 20mm to 8mm, whereby x and y also scaled down appropriately. Top, me and the kids are more than satisfied with the result. A great toy - Puzzle fun guaranteed!
More Do-It-Yourself Projects - See category Do It Yourself (DIY).
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Hi Sacha,
nice to see that you are 3D printing my marble run building blocks. I hope you have fun with building large marble runs. I would be happy, if you could place a link to my site jtronics.de/3ddruck/lego-kugelbahn/
Best regards
jtronics.de
Hi, looks not really like your marble run blocks, but you're welcome. nice work, i like your site.
best regards. 😉