3Doodler

3D printers have forever changed the way we look at manufacturing, but for the everyday consumer at home, this growing industry can still feel very far away. Though printing tech is advancing by leaps and bounds, most current printers are sold at a prohibitively high price, and suffer from some innate technical constraints, stemming both from software complexity, and the limited size of a printable object.

Somehow, the team at WobbleWorks has circumvented all these issues with 3Doodler, an affordable electronic pen that draws in solid plastic, allowing artists and enthusiasts to sketch anything they can imagine in three-dimensional space. The pen draws by extruding a melted ABS plastic (the same kind used by 3D printers), which quickly solidifies upon contact with air, enabling users to sketch complex 3D structures and frameworks instantaneously. Though a bit intimidating to look at, the pen is quite easy to use, and requires no secondary software or computers. Simply plug it into an outlet, and you’ll be ready to draw in minutes. 

3Doodler’s creations can be crafted in a variety of ways: pieces can be drawn on a flat surface and peeled off, or constructed as freestyle 3D objects. Artists can also harness 2D stencils, created by either the dev team or an online community, which allow for incredibly complex structures to be drawn and assembled with ease. If the miniature Eiffel Tower above wasn’t evidence enough, the possibilities are endless.

While you’d have to be truly heartless to miss 3Doodler’s appeal, we love this product for two reasons in particular. First, with an estimated price tag of $75, 3Doodler is the consumer’s most affordable foray into 3D printing (by a wide, wide margin), making this exciting tech more accessible than ever before. More importantly, 3Doodler represents a brand new direction in the development of 3D tech, and the potential applications we envision for it. While this first step may seem rather demure (you’re not going to use 3Doodler  to draw yourself a house), this little gadget may well be the start of an industry-changing trend.