Hasbro Won’t Mind If You Design (And Sell) Your Own 3D-Printed Toys
The advent of online file sharing made it easy for anyone to copy and distribute media for free, and many feel—and fear—that 3D printing will eventually do the same for physical products. So it’s surprisingly refreshing to hear that a corporation like Hasbro has decided to embrace 3D printing, and will work with Shapeways to allow fans to design and sell their own toys based on the company’s properties.
Timed to correspond with the start of Comic-Con later this week, this morning the two companies officially unveiled SuperFanArt, a dedicated website that will allow fans and artists to showcase their creations based on existing Hasbro toy lines, starting with My Little Pony. The site isn’t just a place for amateur designers to show off their creations, though. They’ll actually be able to sell them to the public, produced through Shapeways’ existing 3D printing infrastructure.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
The advent of online file sharing made it easy for anyone to copy and distribute media for free, and many feel—and fear—that 3D printing will eventually do the same for physical products. So it’s surprisingly refreshing to hear that a corporation like Hasbro has decided to embrace 3D printing, and will work with Shapeways to allow fans to design and sell their own toys based on the company’s properties.
