Welcome to the first official Useful 3D Prints blog post.
Today we’re going to be showcasing how 3D printed items make life easier. Today’s example is a personal favorite and impacts a chore everyone performs daily: Brushing our teeth.
I’m a twice a day (sometimes thrice if I’m feeling self-conscious) brusher myself (normally once in the morning, once at night) which means a tube of toothpaste will usually last me around 2-3 weeks.
I’ve always been one to forget to buy another tube just before I run out and so I’ll often find myself trying to squeeze every last bit of toothpaste out the following morning or evening. The process of rubbing the tube against the edges of my bathroom sink is rather cumbersome, perhaps there’s a better way?
I hopped onto my favorite 3D printing file sharing site, www.thingiverse.com, and was able to conjure up a 3D printable file of a toothpaste squeezer that someone generously designed and made downloadable for free.
Oh, and by the way, this toothpaste squeezer costs about $0.05 and twenty minutes to make on my 3D printer at home. The average toothpaste squeezer off Amazon appears to be around $2 (plus shipping) and takes two days to arrive via Prime.
As a quick aside, my first foray into entrepreneurship was actually selling similar 3D printed toothpaste squeezers out of my college dorm room. Every day between study sessions I could make about 20 of these and would then proceed to sell them to every classmate, roommate, friend, or professor that would hear me out. $1 seemed to be a fair price and so $20 (or 2000% gross profit) a day for little effort gave me an easy way to pay for a few meals.
You’d be surprised how many people you can engage with your sales pitch when you open with “Hey, do you brush your teeth?”
Perhaps next time we’ll tackle flossing.
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