Karen maintained she had a good idea. She had been contracted to make a life-sized model of a REVoBOT toy for a display using her 3-D printer, her greatest asset and her mortal enemy. To save time and material costs, she decided to have the printer create the suit directly onto a mannequin.

Only, she kept running into glitches. Positioning. Clogged valve. Stuck actuator. An endless parade of problems. Finally getting frustrated with the latest inconvenience, Karen stormed into the machine. “Incorrect scale! I’ll show you incorrect scale!” She huffed, pulling out the dummy, which was two inches too tall according to the machine’s scanners. Its hand came off as she threw it to the ground, so Karen groaned and went back in to get it, not realizing the machine was on standby.

When she stepped on the taped ‘x’ on the ground, the lights went green, the nozzles, arms, and actuators whirred to life all around her. Karen yelped, but stood perfectly still as the machine began its pre-programmed dance, not wanting to break it, or herself. “You stupid machine! I’m not a mannequin!”

But she could only stand there, watching the 3-D printer print her into red, black, and yellow REVoBOT armor.

It finished hours later with a ding. The arms nozzles finally pulled back to their starting positions. Karen tried to move her legs, to stumble her way out of the machine, and hopefully this stupid armor. But she had never designed the display model to move. The layer of black plastic was just strong enough to keep her knees locked, her elbows frozen, and shoulders static. Worse, it was just tight enough to make it hard to speak.

Meaning, she could only stand there, waiting for her business partner to find and rescue her. Then, she blinked, just about the only major movement she could do. Steve usually didn’t get in till 10 in the morning. The toy store was scheduled to pick the model up at 8:30. She couldn’t even move, and no way was she going to reveal that she accidentally got herself printed into the armor. If word got out about that…

Karen gulped, realizing she was about to spend three weeks on display. She still maintained this was a good idea.