I’ve been doing something similar recently and I find phone cases are popular. You do have to be careful with copyright as you can’t really sell trade marked prints. But you can give them away for free. I print off some small Minecraft pieces and the kids love them. I also resell Bare conductive kits and have my own solderless light up cards.
Rings are popular. Maze boxes are popular too. Skulls, ball-joint figures.
Sometime I also see things on thingiverse I like and ask the user directly if I can use it. Some say yes and others I offer a small per item commission.
That’s a really helpful response. Minecraft is always going to be a big (my son is addicted) but I am well aware of the copyright so would normally steer clear entirely.
I think that key-rings might be just the ticket for the day… gear bearings, skulls, hearts, letters.
That’s really secondary to getting a chance to evangelise about what I love though. If I can get a few people to go online and browse thingiverse or download 123D Catch and scan something that will be a good day. There is a huge untapped market out there. right now it seems like mostly enthusiasts interacting with other enthusiasts and we need to bridge the gap to consumers -albeit they will be mostly tech-savvy consumers at this point.
By the way I have some sample prints that I made for the chemistry lesson that I don’t need. For example an enlarged herringbone gear out of nylon (incredibly durable with a very smooth surface). Also I got some other composite prints. Regarding prints that you don’t produce to your customers needs but rather as giveaway and advertisement you might take a look at some little figurines for a keyring, there are minecraft items like the shovel, pickaxe and sword on thingiverse with holes to fit them on a key ring. A glow-in-the-dark widget like that would blow a child’s mind and they’d be bagging to have one also you can prepare those items to show the variety of colors that you can print with. -Marius
if you want me to send you the presentation please give me your email adress, skype nickname or any other way to send you the files. You could send me a private message on my hub, if you don’t want to publish your email in public threads.
If your son is fan of MineCraft, may I suggest a great kids-friendly CAD solution www.3dslash.net : efficient, fast & so fun ! available offline (for improved features and no worry about wifi during your show). If you need inspiration, please browse our Gallery and Education section for specific kids-curriculums. Our software offers STL import : so whenever you find something cool on Thingiverse or Youmagine, upload it, drag&drop it in our software and you can ask kids to customize it live!
A complete HowTo is also available on 3D Hubs Talk
Hope it will help & don’t hesitate to contact us for support and feedback
Sounds like a neat project! No problem with using that design as long as it fits with the CC Attribution Share-A-Like
Sometimes our designs are licensed with a CC Non-Commercial term (or other restrictions). We are normally fairly open to collaboration if people want to discuss commercial use with us.
We do a lot of events with give aways. Quick prints are always popular, like a small version of this Spanner:
- Check the third photo. We’ve given away close to 10,000 of those!!..
The spanners as colour samples look fantastic. Thanks for the idea. I have a couple more of my own now. I will likely do giveways too, not sure I can get it together enough to do any worthwhile sell-able items. I think I’ll treat it more like a promotion and exhibition than a sale.
Hello Greg
I am a master student in Brunel University. My major is product design. I am doing the survey about the 3D printing for my dissertation. I really need your help to finish the questionnaire, it just has 9 questions that will take you few minutes.
