The most popular toy in 2017 was undoubtedly the fidget spinner, which initially started as a software to assist college students with ADHD and particular wants relieve anxiousness and refocus their vitality. However they’ve grown in reputation since then, and the market is huge, with tens of millions of self-soothing fidgets owned by kids and adults alike. Singaporean product designer Jennifer Ang is without doubt one of the many individuals utilizing 3D printing to create fidget toys.
“As a product designer, I discovered it so superb that 3D printers can flip concepts into actuality nearly immediately,” stated Ang, solopreneur of Heyo.makers, a present store for personalized 3D printing. “You are able to do testing inside hours, with out sending it to a provider for mock-ups and ready per week.”
Ang first used 3D printing when she was an Industrial Design scholar at Nanyang Polytechnic, and continued to take action at her first job as an industrial designer for a design consultancy agency. On the similar time, she was additionally educating courses on product design and 3D printing, and finally left her full-time function for a part-time one to pursue a bachelor’s diploma in design from the Singapore Institute of Administration (SIM) and Royal Melbourne Institute of Expertise (RMIT).
At her personal enterprise, Ang provided product design providers and taught programs, and in 2017 bought her first 3D printer, from Taobao, which was the alternative of a plug and play system. At first, it was only a private interest, however like so many others, Ang needed to pivot in the course of the pandemic, and began promoting personalized 3D printed keychains, coasters, cellphone stands, and bag tags on Shopee. She finally invested in some higher printers, just like the Bambu Lab A1, which enabled her to finally promote her merchandise on Carousell, Lazada, and TikTok.
Ang needed to develop into pop-ups, however realized that her customized 3D printed choices weren’t conducive to that sort of enterprise; not everybody has the time to attend an hour or extra for a product to be fabricated. That’s when she had the concept to promote fidget toys, particularly fidget clickers, at a pop-up.
“Many people fidget as a approach of emotional self-regulation. We could click on on a pen, twirl our hair, play with jewelry or faucet on the desk to appease anxiousness,” Ang defined.
“That’s how fidget clickers work. And in some methods, they could be a behavior alternative – to fidget in a nicer approach.”
These fidget clickers are solely accessible at heyo.makers’ pop-up shops. (Photograph: heyo.makers)
Ang, like me, is a pen clicker, noting that she finds “the clicking and bump therapeutic” and that it helps her focus. She realized she may get the identical feeling from her laptop’s mechanical keyboard, and determined the merchandise at her pop-up store could be fidget clicker keychains, with customizable keycaps she designs and prints at dwelling.
The Heyo.makers keycaps function designs like cursive fonts, smiley faces, cute characters, and Singaporean snacks. Whereas they can be utilized on a customized keyboard, they’re really meant to go on a keypad-like keychain base that you would be able to connect to your bag and click on to your coronary heart’s want.
Ang ran her first pop-up within the fall of 2025, and 3D printed about 200 keycaps to promote at PLQ Mall in Paya Lebar. Whereas she was initially apprehensive that they may not promote, clients ended up shopping for round 30 fidget clickers with 120 keycaps on her very first day.
She stated, “I believed that fidget clickers would attraction extra to children, but it surely seems that adults like them as properly, particularly ladies.”
The design and printing of fidget clickers are very exact. “0.02mm off and the keycaps could not match properly within the base,” says Ang. (Photograph: heyo.makers)
The clicker base is available in totally different sizes, holding anyplace from one to 9 keycaps. Clients can select from greater than 400 totally different keycap designs, and three sorts of clickers: one with a loud click on and bump, one other with only a bump, and one which’s very quiet. Costs for the fidget clickers and keycaps vary from S$8 to S$48.
Ang’s first pop-up did so properly, she’s since provided 4 extra ones at different areas, and has offered over 1,000 fidget clickers since October of 2025. She solely presents the clickers at her pop-ups, however nonetheless sells her different 3D printed merchandise on e-commerce platforms.
“What I really like most is the prospect to deliver my very own concepts to life whereas connecting immediately with clients,” Ang stated. “Seeing individuals get pleasure from what I create is extremely rewarding.”
She could even develop to creating customized keyboards or other forms of fidget toys, noting that “as soon as you understand how to do 3D design, the probabilities are infinite.” That is yet one more instance of how 3D printing could be a actually useful gizmo for small companies!
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