DAVENPORT, Iowa — A Quad Cities man is helping make sure thousands of kids have a unique toy this holiday season. Dylan Bowen is 3D printing toys for Toys for Tots.
During the pandemic, Bowen started 3D printing face shields. That winter, he learned about IC3D Printing's Toys for Tots campaign. IC3D is an Ohio-based manufacturing company.
"I was really intrigued by it, and so I ended up signing up," Bowen said. "I was the only person in the state of Iowa."
The first toy he printed was a penguin. That first year, he made about 350 toys. They were shipped up to a Toys for Tots location in Wisconsin. The next year, he recruited two people to help him and they made about 700 toys. This time, he was able to donate locally to the Quad Cities.
"I have about almost a dozen people across the entire state of Iowa who are printing and donating toys this year," Bowen said.
Besides penguins, there are alligators, dogs, dolphins, trains, jeeps and so much more.
Toys for Tots goes 3D
"My favorite is the jeep," he said. "It's just a very fun, unique one. The wheels roll. And with multicolor printers, you're about to make them look really cool and do some really cool colors with them."
Each toy on average takes about 30 minutes to print. Bowen can program it to print multiple at a time.
He starts planning at the beginning of the year, but really ramps up the campaign in July.
"It's really fun to get to look and see boxes of toys that are piling up," he said.
It's not a cheap project so he has companies, like Modern Woodmen, who help sponsor it.
He's also learned a lot about 3D printing in the last three years.
"There's always going to be new challenges, new things, things go wrong all the time," Bowen said. "Printers break down and have bad failures. I've had printers completely go down and have to have parts replaced on them while printing. Really, the number one problem is making sure that the fusion is proper because if not, then you have warping and stuff like that. And then the toys just don't come out that nice."
This year, his goal was to 3D print 2,500 toys. He ended up surpassing that, making 3,211. Bowen delivered the toys on Nov. 22.
"I was fortunate enough to always have good Christmases growing up," Bowen said. "I know there's plenty of kids out there who aren't lucky enough to have that. And so I just want to give them that and be able to give them unique toys that really you can't just go off and buy."
Last year, Toys for Tots Quad Cities distributed 29,962 toys to 6,602 children. Bowen hopes to eventually make enough toys so each kid can receive one.
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