3D Printing Pens for Kids – Are they a SAFE? Should I Buy My Kid a 3D Printing Pen?
What is a 3D pen or 3D printing pen? A 3D printing pen is simply a heated nozzle that is pen shaped and wrapped in an insulated sheath (so it can be held in the hand) that extrudes melted plastic filament. It is larger & bulkier than ordinary pens and is used to draw in melted filament. By depositing the melted plastic in patterns and shapes you can make something that you can build up in 3 dimensions by putting successive layers of melted plastic on top of each other.
3D pens are sometimes called 3D printer pens, 3D printing pens, 3D pen printers, 3D drawing pen, 3D doodler pen & 3D pen doodlers. All of these terms or names are referring to the same thing – which, as I described above, is a heated pen shaped apparatus used to melt a plastic filament to form 3 dimensional objects.
Should you BUY your son/daughter/grandchild a 3D printing pen? Are 3D printing pens any good? The short answer is NO – you should not buy your son, daughter or grandchild a 3D pen. A 3D printer pen puts your child’s face very close to the melting filament from the pen nozzle for the entire time the pen is being used – and there are some health concerns regarding breathing the fumes of melting plastic filament. The money you would spend on a 3D pen would be better utilized being put towards the purchase of a full-fledged 3D printer.
7 Reasons for NOT Buying a 3D Printing Pen for Your Kids
For a more complete answer – listed below are our reasons WE didn’t go the route of a 3D printing pen – but rather purchased a full fledged 3D printer for our family:
- There are some health & safety concerns regarding the fumes of melting plastic filaments from both 3D printing pens and 3D printers. I know some will claim that there are not these concerns with PLA – but better safe than sorry when you are talking about your child’s face being right over the melting plastic for extended periods of time. I have an entire post dedicate to addressing the potential health & safety issues related to 3D printing that you can find here: Is 3D Printing Safe for My Children?
- The 3D pen is just kind of like a glorified hot glue gun – and your kids will be making a mess and not really learning anything about 3D printing. They will be using free-hand and some eye-hand coordination to melt the plastic – which will not result in any 3D model that will impress either them or you. We don’t think it gives the children the same sense of satisfaction in seeing something they designed & produced with a real 3D printer.
- Kids are likely to get bored with the 3D printing pen very quickly! Almost as quickly as they will make a mess! They are really just heaping globs of melted plastic together, maybe making a crude lattice or other simple shapes and structures that they could probably just as easily and effectively make with a hot glue gun.
- We do like that it is another method for them to express their creativity – we just don’t feel that it is necessarily any better than them harnessing that same creativity with something like clay – as opposed to melted plastic.
- It’s not like they can design something in TinkerCAD and then send it to the 3D pen to be printed.
- It doesn’t incorporate the skills that we think are useful and exciting about 3D printing.
- It doesn’t really give them a better understanding of the spatial relationship of planes and objects in 3 dimensions.
- It doesn’t improve their computer skills – in that they don’t have to interact with a computer to control and manipulate either the model they intend to print or the printer and how it will print the model.
- Most 3D printing pens are going to cost somewhere between $40 – $75. For about $175-$200 you can get an amazingly capable 3D printer like the Creality Ender 3 Pro – which was the 3D printer that we decided to begin our 3D printing journey with! If you want to learn more about this printer – please check our my post: What is the Best 3D Printer for a Beginner in 2020? The Winner is (Still) the Creality Ender 3 Pro!
Conclusion
If you are intent on getting your kids/grandkids into 3D printing – we would recommend that you save those dollars you had intended on using to purchase a 3D printing pen and instead put them towards a real FDM style 3D printer like one of the ones found in my post: Best 3D Printers for Children 8-12 Years Old. We think it is money better spent on something that will likely give your kids/grandkids more satisfaction in learning how to CREATE something impressive with some measure of precision using a 3D printer. It will also challenge them with regards to the computer skills and learning more about this fascinating manufacturing technology that’s importance and prominence in our daily lives in only going to continue to grow.
Sincerely,
