The 3Doodler Start was released two years ago, and has proved to be a hit, winning Toy of the Year at last year’s Toy Fair. The pen is designed with younger kids in mind, and this year 3Doodler is releasing a new STEM Series of products designed around the Start. The company has partnered with HEXBUG, resulting in a Make Your Own HEXBUG Pen Set and Activity Kit for the 3Doodler Start. You can doodle your HEXBUG’s body and legs with insect-themed Doodle Molds, then watch it crawl around and even build mazes for it to run through. The kit was designed to allow kids to design and experiment with different structures, learning about physics, engineering and structural principles.
“Bringing together HEXBUG and 3Doodler gives us a chance to provide a fun and creative educational experience for children of all ages. Through this partnership, we’re focused on building kids’ confidence in creating something from their own imagination, and then putting it to the test,” said Tony Norman, Co-Founder, President and CEO of HEXBUG. “It is our mission to teach kids how to become critical problem solvers, and spark their curiosity when it comes to the STEM fields.”
- A 3Doodler Start 3D Printing Pen
- Two packs of 3Doodler Start Plastic
- An Activity Guide with 10 different projects
- Three HEXBUG models
- Two themed DoodleMolds
- Micro USB charging cable
The kit will be available in May 2018, priced at $59.99. The Activity Kit on its own will cost $24.99.
3Doodler is releasing several other STEM series kits as well. The Activity Kits are designed to stimulate creativity and STEM thinking, including problem solving, spatial reason, structural design, etc. There’s the Robotic Dinosaur Activity Kit, which allows kids to create their own dinosaurs; the Make Your Own Figurines Activity Kit which involves making articulated action figures with ball and socket joints, and the Science & Engineering Activity Kit.
Then there are the DoodleMolds Kits, which include:
- The Make Your Own Desserts Kit
- The Make Your Own Food Keyring Kit
- The Make Your Own Masks Kit
- The Make Your Own Eyeglasses Kit
“The creation of the 3Doodler Start STEM Series marks an important next step for 3Doodler as a company,” said 3Doodler Co-Founder Daniel Cowen. “STEM and its importance to education is well documented and instrumental to childhood educational development, as well as to the future of industries like engineering and architecture. Watching some of our youngest users turn the 3Doodler Start into a tool for robotics and design is one of the most rewarding accomplishments we’ve had at 3Doodler to date and a critical part of evaluating and planning our long-term business strategy. Making 3D accessible to education is mission critical going forward.”
If you’re going to the Toy Fair, you’ll also get to see a 6′ 6″ 3Doodled replica of the Statue of Liberty, created by two artists over 10 weeks. The base was constructed at 3Doodler’s New York office, while the statue itself was doodled by art teacher Connie Kuglmeier of Germany, one of 3Doodler’s original Kickstarter backers. The statue was made with three 3Doodler Create pens and consists of 2,800 strands of plastic.
Speaking of the 3Doodler Create, more updates will be coming to that series as well, 3Doodler says, later this year.
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[Images provided by 3Doodler]