3D Dragon Breathes Life into 7-year-old Girl’s Vision in Australia · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

A 3D titanium dragon and a seven-year-old girl are the ingredients for the best good news story of the 2014 new year. Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) were proud to report on their blog:
3D Dragon – courtesy CSIRO Facebook page
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 very polite letter – courtesy CSIRO News Blog
They continued:
…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.
You can watch it being made here:
Tech news site Gizmodo Australia’s reaction on twitter was typical and has been retweeted numerous times:
CSIRO 3D-Printed A Dragon Made Of Titanium For A 7-Year Old Girl, Because It Could – http://t.co/ukdVvvQLjx
— Gizmodo Australia (@giz_au) January 11, 2014
KMB clearly enjoyed some uplifting news:
Take an 'Ahhh' break from an otherwise cr@p 'news' day MT"@CSIROnews: Sophie asked. We made a dragon. http://t.co/pJ916dOkc0 ^VH"
— KMB (@rich_tapestry) January 10, 2014
So did Rachael McDiarmid:
Man I just LOVE the CSIRO. Legends! And great publicity. Accelerating our dragon R&D program http://t.co/OWNJShfNLj via @wordpressdotcom
— Rachael McDiarmid (@RJMcDiarmid) January 8, 2014
Damon Meredith saw the implications in this public relations coup for a government organization:
I, as a taxpayer, would support more dragon research. @CSIROnews http://t.co/7xzkhqGalq
— Damon Meredith (@DamonAM) January 9, 2014
Hugh Jørgensen was explicit about funding cutbacks:
And we're defunding these guys why? MT @CSIROnews Sophie asked, and we said we'd look into it. We made a dragon http://t.co/JiaL9fKYdR
— Hugh Jørgensen (@hughjorgensen) January 10, 2014
However, there was a sour note from John Derry:
I don’t give a crap about Sophie or her dragon. #csiro
— John Derry (@johnlderry) January 10, 2014
But Penny Timms liked the happy ending:
Who says news is always about disaster and destruction? A nice ending. #CSIRO makes #Brisbane girl a titanium #dragon http://t.co/0MFAfhaW0l
— Penny Timms (@pennytimms) January 11, 2014
It is a girl so its name is ‘Toothless’ as requested by Sophie Lester.
As she waited for the delivery of her dragon, her mother expressed her daughter’s delight:
Sophie's dragon – courtesy CSIRO Facebook page
Mrs Lester said Sophie was overjoyed with the CSIRO's 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 in the CSIRO. She's saying Australian scientists can do anything,” she said.