Shape Tray Toy for Baby

Made a shape tray toy for my 4 month old to play with so he can practice fine motor skills and eventually learn shapes and colours.

The tray is large and bulky to make it harder to toss on the floor. It's also nicely rounded to make it nicer to touch.

The shapes are nicely rounded and beveled we well to remove any sharp edges and corners.

Print the shapes in different colors for some visual interest.

After several months of use now the toy has held up very well. It gets washed in warm soapy water occasionally and looks brand new even though it all ends up on the floor from high chair height.

Fusion360 file included in case you'd like to make some adjustments.

NOTE: I've tried to make the pieces large enough to not be choking hazards, but if you're at all concerned about that try scaling up the pieces and tray by 5% or so. As with any baby toy, it's up to you to keep them safe, so always supervise them when they are playing.

If you'd like to test the pieces for choking potential you can try this printed choke hazard tester: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3298630

Print Settings

Notes:

3D PRINTING SETTINGS

The tray is rather large at 190x230mm. Will need a large bed to fit it. I printed at 0.4 layer height to try and speed up the print, but even so it took 9 hours. I would recommend printing it at 0.2 just to make the rounded top edge nice and smooth. 0.4 leaves it a little chunky. I used 15% cubic infill and 2 walls with a 0.6 nozzle. Make adjustments as needed to make it durable so it can withstand some abuse.

The shapes are printed with 0.2 layers, 3 walls, 5 top and bottom layers and 20% infill to give them some durability and a hefty feel. Each shape took about an hour.

Filaments used as printed:

Tray - Sun Lu Sky Blue PLA+

Hexagon - Polyalchemy Elixir Crimson Red PLA

Pentagon - Polyalchemy Elixir Pearl White PLA

Oval - Polyalchemy Elixir Orange PLA

Wedge - Polyalchemy Elixir Abyss PLA

Triangle - Polyalchemy Elixir Night sky Blue PLA

Cross - Polyalchemy Elixir Aqua Blue PLA

Star - Polyalchemy Elixir Summer Daze Yellow PLA

Circle - Polyalchemy Elixir Emerald Green PLA

Square - AMZ3D Gold PLA