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I doubted it to get a 3D printer for my 11 year old daughter. Maybe I was being selfish, but, such as a lot of parentsI spent the entire Christmas season dreading the words “another meeting is needed.” I don’t know much more about 3D printing than reading articles tablet players and Starbucks of his various works. I don’t want to play Warhammer or building a coffee shop, and since I play and collect tools for work, I don’t enjoy doing this.
But my 11 year old daughter and her friends are into 3D printing. They are forever buying and selling 3D printed resistors. He has 3D printer pen last summer and spent several weeks playing with them. When he first started asking about a 3D printer, he already knew everything Things and Prints and he had ideas about what he would like to print with his own machine.
If you are a professional or have 3D printed yourself, you may be surprised to hear that many parents are not sure they want to get involved in the industry. It’s a common enough problem that number about the Reddit thread they serve as forums for adults to ask whether primary school children can use the printer alone. I found the answers there particularly unsatisfactory, as Redditors liked to immediately jump into semi-professional advice (“Don’t get them a resin printer, and stick to PLA, PETG, and TPU!”) that it is not really to answer the question to the normie.
In the end, I decided to give my son his wish and see how difficult it would be for him to start driving new things. Elegoo Centauri Carbon 3D printer. I am happy to say that the printer is as easy to set up and use as a Barbie Dream House. I found it so easy, in fact, that I agreed to give it a try Snapmaker U1a high-quality four-color printer. Likewise, I asked my friend Divya Viswanathan, who was experiencing similar pressure from her elementary-aged son, Leo Magnusson, to try out a device designed for children: the A game box printer. The Toy Box proved to be limited in what it could print, but it was easier than both the Centauri Carbon and the U1 to deal with, using intuitive, kid-friendly software.
Based on our experiences, this is what Divya and I share with other parents who don’t want to introduce their children to 3D printing.
How Much Space Does It Take?
Although I was surprised by the ease with which it was necessary for my child to start printing and printing (I will discuss this in a moment), I will admit that these tools deserve space. I’m sure some parents also measure their willingness to buy a little gift for their child by how much space they’ll need in the house.
The Centauri Carbon is certainly a large device—about the size of a laundry basket—at about 20 inches tall and 16 inches wide. And because 3D printers work by melting a filament (in this case, PLA, which is polyester), there is smoke. It won’t mess up your house with the stench of melted plastic, but I wouldn’t want it working in my daughter’s room all the time.
I had a Centauri Carbon sitting on an Ikea storage locker in the hallway of my library (I have a wonderful old house with rooms whose definitions don’t map to modern buildings), and it doesn’t bother anyone. The printer is as loud as my dishwasher, and I can hear the fan from the other room when it’s on. When pressed, the tool head rotates around the rail in a herky-jerky fashion; until I fixed the shutter on the wall, the whole thing shook.
