Hasta La Gadget!

Mar 19

Prepare Barbie for battle with 3D-printed armor

Designer Jim Rodda wants to make sure Barbie is ready for battle in this 3D-printed medieval armor.

(Credit: Jim Rodda)

Barbie can be anything — an astronaut, doctor, Air Force pilot, rock star, police officer, computer engineer — so why not a warrior? That’s exactly what 3D designer Jim Rodda, known as Zheng3 in the hobbyist 3D-printing community, envisioned when he started a Kickstarter campaign to create Barbie-compatible 3D-printed medieval armor.

It started because Rodda’s 4-year-old niece has a birthday coming up and he wanted to design and print a unique gift for her.

“The original plan was to make My Little Pony-compatible glitter cannons, but the engineering turned out to be beyond what I could handle in a reasonable amount of time,” Rodda told Crave. “So I back-burnered that idea, but was still interested in making accessories for toys she already had. I’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons since forever, so my design thinking often goes towards fantasy medieval themes. From there it’s a short mental hop to armor for Barbie dolls.”