Having watched many years of April Fools’ Days come and go, the class of 2024 was pretty tame by previous standards.

Nexa 3D XiP Nova – The AI revolution marches on with Nexa3D’s AI-powered 3D printer, the XiP Nova. It’ll print a full print plate before lunch, and then make a dinner reservation at your favorite restaurant. Nexa 3D CEO Avi Reichental recently told All3DP that by 2030 the only 3D printing companies left will be the ones that embrace AI, but we don’t think this is quite what he meant.

SUPLAI.AI – Launching out of stealth, this “AI for everything” promises, quite literally, anything. Got an idea but no design, manufacturing, tooling, supply or infrastructure to realize it? SUPLAI (pronounced supply) will do it all for you. We get Idiocracy vibes from this one: it’s Industry 4.0 colliding head-on with an ad for Brawndo. It’s actually a clever tease for the CFDAM Computational Design Symposium, taking place in Berlin in May.

Printables Bands – With feelgood hits including The Extruder Blues and Slicing Through the Night, Prusa Research’s Printables model repository opened a new chapter in the vinyl revival with Printables Bands–downloadable LPs of 3D printing-themed tunes for you to 3D print at home. Perhaps the most impressive part is that there is real 3D printing-themed music to accompany the stunt by ThermoPLAstic People.

Ricoh to print replacement Iron Bridge – A prank that’s likely to only ring familiar to residents of Ricoh’s Telford, UK, base and folks (like this writer) who grew up and took field trips in the Midlands region of England; suffice to say, the Iron Bridge is a cast iron monument from the Industrial Revolution, and replacing it with a 30-meter-long Nylon substitute might be a touch ambitious.

Airfix 3D printable paper plane – Better known for its scale model hobby kits and the associative whiff of poly cement, Airfix’s “prank” tops all others with an actual model for you to download and print. It probably won’t fly, but it is a true-to-scale (1:3) model paper airplane and comes with a nifty stand for display.

That’s pretty much the lot that we witnessed in action or could find after the fact; not a healthy bunch compared to previous years’ laughs. It is interesting to see that even if the subject of the content isn’t necessarily AI, there is heavy use of AI content tools to pad out the pranks.

Did we miss any? Share them in the comments.