Imagine spending under $15 and having an educational, fun, and exciting construction set for your kids. This is exactly what Amanda Ghassaei from Instructables has done recently.
Amanda Ghassaei
Amanda is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA with a BA in Physics and Minor in Chemistry. She has research experience in many of the up and coming tech fields of the future, which include, solar cells, nanotechnology, and optical sensors. She also has a knack for producing awesome 3D printed devices. Recently she got a bit of internet fame from her technique, which allowed for the conversion of MP3’s into 3D printed vinyl records.
Amanda’s construction set is a simple one, but one which could easily cost five to ten times the price if you were to go buy it at a toy store. It uses just 2 main types of pieces; 3D printed connectors, and regular drinking straws. Combined, a box of 200 straws could easily create 3D structures which are larger than your children. The latest connector piece she has designed has 12 connection locations which will allow for an imagination to run wild. According to Amanda they “allow you to create pyramid-like structures with three equilateral triangles as faces, and attach many of these pyramids together.” Children, or even adults, simply take a straw, put a connector on each end, and then continue to add straws and connectors in any orientation, until they have 
Although Amanda used a top of the line Epilog printer for her tests, smaller, cheaper printers like a Makerbot Replicator (Still $2700) could also be used with a similar outcome. The AutoCAD files and more details on Amanda’s creation can be viewed here: https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Straw-Connector-V4/
Discuss this project here: https://3dprintboard.com/showthread.php?1698-3D-Printed-Construction-Set-For-Your-Children