Have a 3D Printed Halloween

It smells like fall outside, and it smells like melting sugary plastic inside! Tonight, kids in all neighborhoods will make the rounds, collecting candy and showing off their costumes. It’s a golden opportunity to squeeze in a little STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) excitement!

For Halloween, we’ll be giving away 3D printed figurines with our candy, and the same models will emerge from the mists on the printer in our driveway laboratory. Holidays provide great opportunities to have fun with 3D printers. Here are some of my favorite Halloween printing projects:

1. Print out giveaways for trick-or-treaters! The constant thud of Snickers in your pumpkin bucket can get boring–mix it up by handing out custom printed figures! We’re giving out TARDIS models, scary pumpkins, and spectres. To see these models and other good Halloween prints, check out my Halloween thingiverse collection. All of the objects I’m printing were downloaded from Thingiverse–no 3D modeling required!
2. Make your own costume props. I found a project from Tunell in Flagstaff, AZ, he says: “My son’s Harry Potter halloween costume came without Harry’s glasses. I couldn’t believe it! I designed some that will fit nicely on his face. They are small and designed to fit a 5 year old.” Perfect example! If you know how to make a quick 3D model, there are so many options. There are also a ton of props on Thingiverse, like Tunell’s Harry Potter glasses, so hop on and see what you can find.
3. Make Halloween decrations with your printer. I 3D printed some coral candle fixtures from Ecken on Thingiverse. These will sit out next to the 3D printer with a battery operated tea tree light to provide the right spooky ambience. I’ll also have some dry ice and water nearby in the roundom vase I printed for Maker Faire. You can download Halloween cookie cutters, creepy spiders, skull LED lanterns, and more. For a great variety of holiday projects, be sure to check Make and Instructables.
4. Create something new! Sometimes the weirdest and creepiest things come from your own ideas – or better yet, your kids. How about the combination of a cat and the ubiquitous 3D printed octopus? Free CAD tools like Blender allow direct modification of STL files (the file you download from Thingiverse) and new tools like Matter Remix make it really easy to customize existing STL files.

We’ll upload pictures from Halloween, so check back to see how we used 3D printing to get kids excited about technology and creativity!

If you want to talk over a project idea or you need help figuring out what CAD system to use, contact us for a free initial consultation. We can also bring the printing to you–how about a fresh take on birthday party entertainment?