MakerBot Industries

Modular designs rule

The other day I was chatting with a friend about printing toys on my MakerBot. ¹  My favorite kind of toy are multi-part toys that snap-fit together.  There are a lot of benefits to designing and printing toys as modular parts.

• Handing a pile of parts to a kid is a pretty magical thing. ²  They may put them together in a way that may surprise you.  And, once they assemble the toy, they have a real sense of accomplishment.  It also teaches them how parts can fit together – and gets them thinking about how to improve on your designs.
• Taking a toy apart is almost as natural as playing with them.  There’s really nothing like taking something apart and reassembling it to teach you why certain design choices were made.  It also gives confidence that they might just be able to reassemble something once they’ve taken the time to pull it apart.
• It allows you to print up a replacement part if something breaks.  If you are making something cool, you’re going to be using small, delicate, or intricate parts. ³  Your kid is going to break their toys – but if you designed them in a modular fashion, they’re going to be easy to repair. ⁴
• It leaves room for improvement and upgrades.  You never know how your kid will actually play with a toy.  Maybe the boat will be a robot or microphone.  Or, maybe they’ll demand a third arm, tail, or wings.

1. Photo courtesy of fdecomite. [↩]
2. Do you remember the first time you saw a Lego set? [↩]
3. Also known as breakable parts or points of failure. [↩]
4. My Leonardo Robot has two broken hips and a bad elbow. [↩]