EggPaw Dog Toy

This instructable will teach you how to design and print a fun, rattling, dog toy.

The beads that make the dog toy rattle are printed and sealed inside the toy and released by dropping the toy once printed. Have a look at the video to see it in action.

**As with any pet toy, please make sure you supervise your dog at all times whilst playing with this toy**

Okay lets get started 😊

I decided to use an egg shape for my toy as it moves unpredictably on the ground.

Choose or import your 3d shape in Tinkercad

Consider what size you would like your toy - It needs to be too big for your dogs mouth.

I have two Miniature Schnauzers so chose an egg shape 100mm width and depth and 130mm high.

Once you have decided on the size, adjust your shape in Tinkercad.

Copy and paste your shape and make the second shape at least 13mm smaller in all directions.

Make this second shape into a ‘hole’ and centre it with the first shape in all axes.

Now group the shapes together – to check you have a nice hollow shape, click on it and select transparent on the colour choice (see picture 2)

Right, we have our toy shape, lets add some beads

The beads will be printed inside the toy and need to be placed in such a way as to print stably but still pop off the base when the toy is dropped. For this we need to create a flat base inside the toy.

Add a half sphere and size it to fit into the bottom of the main shape so that it is larger than the hole but smaller than the outer wall (see picture 1)

Add a sphere and size it to 4mm width, 4mm depth and 10mm height – this will be our bead.

Move the bead up on the z axis until its base is at the same height as the top of the half sphere.

Copy and paste the bead and fill up the top of the half sphere with beads, making sure they don’t touch each other (see picture 2).

Now group the half sphere and all the beads together.

Align this shape with the hollow toy shape and group these together (see picture 3).

Now your toy is ready to print

Slice your toy using your normal setting but increase your infill to at least 50% - this is to ensure the toy is very sturdy and will not crack or break.

Print your toy, checking that the beads remain vertical during the printing.

I have printed this toy in PLA and PETG and both have stood the test of time but I would advise PETG as it is less brittle.

Once your toy has finished printing and is room temperature, drop it onto a hard surface, I dropped mine onto our tile floor (see the video).

This releases the beads and the toy should start to rattle.

Now let's play!

My Mini Schnauzer loves this toys as you can see in the video 😊