This dad is carrying on a fantastic, but not at all new tradition. I had surgery in the early 1970's when I was three, and I've still got the old teddy bear up in a box in the attic that the staff at the hospital made for me that "needed the same surgery".
Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#32Great story. The Teddy Bear is really a wonderful thing and ought to be considered one of the most important “inventions“ of the last ~century. They’ve brought a lot of joy to a lot of kids (and adults too.) I came across this link recently and bookmarked it, as it reminded me of the fun and quirky articles that used to be more prevalent online. A time capsule from the 90s, almost. “10 Common Misconceptions About Ted…
Ah, what could be more important than a mechanical device which simulates human presence! It liberates the parent to other pursuits, just as mechanical reproduction simulator devices liberate the partner.
All these inanimate, inert gifts are much better for kids than smartphones and computers, which they shouldn't have either way.
Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The standard PLA plastic is fine. It is non toxic although may provide a surface for bacteria to grown on. Although the whole toy does as well
PLA is only fine if it’s food-grade and only if the extruder and hotend have never been used with any non-food-grade materials. Otherwise, there is no telling what additives and dyes are in those filaments, or what they do to a child after prolonged exposure.
Even off-the-shelf cheap PLA still has orders of magnitude less random crap in it than any of the other plastic toys they already play with.
I wouldn't make a pacifier or chew toy from it, but I've got no problem making dozens of PLA toys for my kids (after having done the research on the filaments), and I'd say 50% of the toys my kids have, have been 3D printed by ourselves.
Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#34Great story. The Teddy Bear is really a wonderful thing and ought to be considered one of the most important “inventions“ of the last ~century. They’ve brought a lot of joy to a lot of kids (and adults too.) I came across this link recently and bookmarked it, as it reminded me of the fun and quirky articles that used to be more prevalent online. A time capsule from the 90s, almost. “10 Common Misconceptions About Ted…
Ah, what could be more important than a mechanical device which simulates human presence! It liberates the parent to other pursuits, just as mechanical reproduction simulator devices liberate the partner.
Inanimate objects stimulate the mind. Wooden blocks can become space ships, rocks mountains. I wouldn’t trade my imaginative childhood experience for any modern day app. No way.
Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#35Great story. The Teddy Bear is really a wonderful thing and ought to be considered one of the most important “inventions“ of the last ~century. They’ve brought a lot of joy to a lot of kids (and adults too.) I came across this link recently and bookmarked it, as it reminded me of the fun and quirky articles that used to be more prevalent online. A time capsule from the 90s, almost. “10 Common Misconceptions About Ted…
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Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#36So, Eeyore?
Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#37It might seems like a simple feel-good story for some, but it's more than that. I didn't imagine how much children learn and cope through toys until I had my own kids.
Example 1: when my daughter was 2 she got a fishbone stuck in her mouth. I gave her lots of bread and water so that something would force the small bone to go down. After 5 minutes the issue was resolved and she immediately jumped to her teddy bear and started playing "you have a bone teddy, you need bread, take this, take that". The first plays were urgent and quite serious and the teddy was always "cured" quickly. But later through the following days as she played the same idea she started to improvise. Teddy, in her hands, would cough and cough - I would offer him things for 10 minutes and more and nothing would help him. And she would laugh at this. After these plays fish bones in her mind were no longer serious.
Example 2: when she was 3 we tried to adapt her to a kindergarten. After the first day when she was home she picked up her toy cars and started playing. Some of the cars were teachers, others were children, one was me, another one was her, and one small car was a smaller child that cried all the time. And we played the routine where I came to the kindergarten with her, stayed for a bit, and then went to work. At the moment the "dad" car went to work she would physically tense up and become silent, as if it was really happening. But those moments became easier once she learned more details about what to expect during the typical day in the kindergarten and that later the "dad" car always comes back to take her home. Seems like this experience was helpful as, despite being somewhat shy, she never cried during her adaptation period.
Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
PLA is only fine if it’s food-grade and only if the extruder and hotend have never been used with any non-food-grade materials. Otherwise, there is no telling what additives and dyes are in those filaments, or what they do to a child after prolonged exposure.
>what they do to a child after prolonged exposure. You could say this about most plastics. If you are concerned about PLA purity you should be triple scared of the much worse plastics we use regularly.
I don’t disagree, but this discussion was about PLA specifically.
Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
PLA is only fine if it’s food-grade and only if the extruder and hotend have never been used with any non-food-grade materials. Otherwise, there is no telling what additives and dyes are in those filaments, or what they do to a child after prolonged exposure.
Is it possible to clean existing extruders that have been previously used with non-food-grade PLA to make them fit for food-grade use, or do you have to purchase a brand new extruder?
Unless you don't cook anything without your binder of US FDA datasheets and guidelines in hand, you don't worry about it.
(And if you do that, you're already screaming 'not food safe' any time anybody mentions 3D printing anyway.)
Aside from direct and prolonged contact, (you probably don't want to print and repeatedly use a spoon for example) the main somewhat legitimate concern is bacterial growth in all the tiny crevices that arise as a result of the printing process. Don't 3D print food storage jars and try to wash and re-use them?
For a child's toy, there's not really a reason to worry about or treat it differently than anything you buy. Once it's been chucked on the floor, smeared through the dogs breakfast, and stuck in their mouth, it's pretty inconsequential that it happened to be 3D printed.
Re: Dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children with medical disorders
#40This dad is carrying on a fantastic, but not at all new tradition. I had surgery in the early 1970's when I was three, and I've still got the old teddy bear up in a box in the attic that the staff at the hospital made for me that "needed the same surgery".
"Teddy Technothrasher" rolls off the tongue nicely, I must say