I bought a
3D Doodler on kickstarter and it arrived this week. It's a fun toy. (Disclaimer: they say it isn't a toy because it isn't for children. It's like a glue gun though. Requires supervision, but a pre-teen can use it.)
Some people have made really cool things with it. I'm not that artistic so not so much. I'm getting better with it though.
Using it is easy. You feed it a plastic strand. It heats up the plastic and sends it out the other end. Then you draw your object. I used paper as a placemat so I wouldn't get plastic all over. It doesn't stick though so this isn't really necessary.
The only problem I had is that I was afraid of it heating up too much so kept turning it off for a few minutes. Which caused jams. The solution to the jams was usually to run it on paper. For a touch jam, I had to let it cool down completely and start over. I did have the window open since it is heating plastic - today was the first warm enough day to try.
Here's what we made:
1 - a friend made this in his first attempt - kind of a snowman/kind of a wizard
2 - my first object (I'm told it looks like a unicorn. I think it is more of a blob)
3 - another friend made these two hearts in his first attempt
4 - a 3D letter "E". I didn't think about making it stand up on it's own, so it is more of a prototype.
5 - my attempt at a heart