Sophie, a 7-year-old girl in Queensland, Australia, wrote a letter to the Australian national science agency CSIRO. She asked for a dragon.
Hello Lovely Scientist
My name is Sophie and I am 7 years old. My dad told me about the scientists at the CSIRO. Would it be possible if you can make a dragon for me. I would like it if you could but if you can’t that’s fine.
I would call it toothless if it was a girl and if it is a boy I would name it Stuart.
I would keep it in my special green grass area where there are lots of space. I would feed it raw fish and I would put a collar on it. If it got hurt I would bandage it if it hurt himself. I would play with it every weekend when there is no school.
Love from Sophie
Sophie received a public reply which reads, in part:
Over the past 87 odd years we have not been able to create a dragon or dragon eggs. We have sighted an eastern bearded dragon at one of our telescopes, observed dragonflies and even measured body temperatures of the mallee dragon. But our work has never ventured into dragons of the mythical, fire breathing variety.
And for this Australia, we are sorry.
But that's not the end of the story! The agency's additive manufacturing facility in Melbourne went to work, and created a titanium 3D-printed dragon named Toothless in Lab 22.
The dragon is being shipped to Sophie in Brisbane. See a video of Toothless' design process at Geeks Are Sexy.