Earlier this week we posted about a letter we received from Sophie, a 7-year-old girl. All she wanted was a dragon.
“Our work has never ventured into dragons of the mythical, fire breathing variety. And for this Australia, we are sorry,” we replied.
Sophie’s letter, and our response, made an unexpected splash across the globe. It was featured on TIME, Huffington Post, The Independent, Yahoo, Breakfast TV, the list goes on. People contacted us offering to help, financial institutions tweeted their support and DreamWorks Studios phoned (seriously), saying they knew how to train dragons and wanted to speak with Sophie. The dreams of one little girl went viral.
We couldn’t sit here and do nothing. After all, we promised Sophie we would look into it.
So this morning at 9:32 a.m. (AEDT), a dragon was born.
Toothless, 3D printed out of titanium, came into the world at Lab 22, our additive manufacturing facility in Melbourne. The scientists there have printed some extraordinary things in the past—huge anatomically correct insects, biomedical implants and aerospace parts. So they thought a dragon was achievable.
“Being that electron beams were used to 3D print her, we are certainly glad she didn’t come out breathing them … instead of fire,” said Chad Henry, our Additive Manufacturing Operations Manager. “Titanium is super strong and lightweight, so Toothless will be a very capable flyer.”
Toothless is currently en route from Lab 22 in Melbourne to Sophie’s home in Brisbane.
Sophie’s mother Melissah said Sophie was overjoyed with our response and has been telling everyone dragon breath can be a new fuel. “All her friends are now saying they want to be a scientist and Sophie says she now wants to work at CSIRO. She’s saying Australian scientists can do anything,” Melissah told the Canberra Times.
We’d love to have you in our team, Sophie. For now, stay curious.
* * *
UPDATE: Dragon delivery complete.
Media resources: More images and video: A 3D printed dragon
20th January 2014 at 9:35 pm
Sophie is a lovely girl with fantastic imagination, and the response of the your people are just incredible, together it has made one of the most wonderful, heart touching true stories of the year, thank you all to bring us a beautiful beginning of 2014.
20th January 2014 at 5:11 pm
I knew it. I should have requested a dragon when I was her age.
20th January 2014 at 5:41 am
Reblogged this on Azure Lover and commented:
Science can actually be fun…couldn’t help rebloging this. ^_^
20th January 2014 at 5:39 am
This practically got me teary…Im in Nigeria so this is actually my first time hearing abouT CSIRO…and to think Toothless is coloured Azure….totally rebloging this…GOOD JOB CSIRO.
19th January 2014 at 6:06 am
Reblogged this on Gabby's Word and commented:
So cute.