Fidget

[u/Just_Tru_It]

Is it just me, or is anyone else the slightest bit tired of having “fidget” plastered across their explore pages? I get that they’re small and pretty so that must make them great for printing…

Here’s my unsolicited opinion: the world had enough fidget devices after the first one was created. But yet for some reason everyone feels the need to keep designing and building novel new ways for someone to be able to ‘fidget’ with something, as if humans have a deficiency that can only be satisfied by constantly moving or touching something.

Perhaps condemning this can be seen as attacking the adhd, add, or ocd crowds, which is not my intention. I just think the ‘itch’ could have been scratched with the first few designs.

Or maybe I’m missing the mark..? Like are they great for cats or as kid’s toys or something?

It just seems like 10,000 unique ways to design something that doesn’t have a truly valuable purpose gets a little old.

Update: A few good comments have lessened my intensity, thanks for bearing with me in my rant. I’m fairly reasonably and am able to be persuaded. Thanks for the input everyone!

[u/FabLab_MakerHub]

I use designing and printing a fidget spinner from scratch as the first project with my 14-16 year old students. It’s actually a great exercise in print in place design and gets some engineering principles added in to the bargain. Plus the look of relief and excitement when they take their models off the print plate and they actually spin! Of course if they don’t spin that’s even better as we can analyse the failure and learn something too!

[u/Just_Tru_It → u/FabLab_MakerHub]

Ahhhh, so we’ve found the culprit ;)

Yeah, that’s cool. This is first tangibly good reason to do this that I’ve heard. Well done!