Toy testing, compliance and INDESTRUCTIBLE OTTERS.

I won't lie, UKCA testing is something that we've been looking at for ages but simply didn't know where to start. Captain Engineerpants got the ball rolling by thoroughly over-researching the equipment required and adding it to the already enormous arsenal of Things That I Shouldn't Touch he's acquired over the past year and a bit.

We only use high-quality EN71-3 certified filaments anyway, so that was an easy first win for the paperwork. Baz also re-engineers every design we purchase, giving them thicker walls and stronger infill as standard.

We decided to start the product tests with our scrap fidgets (G-Man Projects designs). Unsurprisingly, these all passed with flying colours. We use four of them to raise our coffee table off the carpet to stop the robot vacuum getting stuck, so we knew they were strong!

We've now started on our mini figurines. I bought a selection of other models by the same designers from local craft shops, Christmas markets, Etsy and cheap-but-questionable online Chinese stores, to give us a good idea of the quality out there and to compare the structural integrity of our makes compared with others.

Olly the Otter (designed by MatMire Makes) was chosen to be the first victim, and victim he was. Although these guys are pretty robust, he failed the rotational torque test, albeit right at the upper limit. The test failed at one of the limb joints (we may have pulled his little leg off), and we were initially a bit concerned as all of the MMM mini figs have identical limb joints. Baz spent a few days Mad Scientisting in his workshop, creating horrific dismembered Otter limbs to potentially destroy in a series of increasingly violent experiments. Neither of us wanted our stock to merely scrape through compliance. We wanted it to withstand more stress than the testing allowed. Eventually he emerged victorious with an otter that could withstand an apocalypse*.

We also tested the other models we'd purchased, mostly out of curiosity, but there was a bit of earnest market research and quality comparison going on too. Suffice to say, the cheap Chinese import prints fell apart at the gentlest of stressors. We weren't surprised. They felt weightless and insubstantial even before we went full Dr Frankenstein on them. I don't mean to brag, but the difference in quality would be screamingly obvious to anyone comparing them to ours or the other UK based printers.

What did surprise us was that ALL of the other models from UK makers failed, most of which carried UKCA markings. And the majority of them failed at an earlier point than our first Olly did.

It makes me wonder just how many people are paying out hard-earned money for inadequate testing, or worse, simply sticking labels onto untested products. I don't have any answers as to how you figure out who to buy from, but it's definitely strengthened our resolve to keep our quality as high as possible and to be transparent about our chosen designers, product testing and materials.

If our product has a UKCA label on it, you can be certain that it's the direct descendent of a brutally reconfigured test piece, and will be randomly batch tested throughout its production life with us to ensure consistently high standards. Also, it will be made only with filaments from trusted and certified manufacturers. If it doesn't carry a mark, it either hasn't been tested yet, or we have been unable to modify the design to ensure compliance. It will still have been re-engineered to make it as robust as possible and it will still be printed using compliant filaments. Don't give it to your kids, but still buy it for yourself.

Ultimately, we're now even happier with our decision to self-certify. We want our fidgets, figurines and mini-figs to be engineered to the highest standards, and the testing gives us an excellent bar to exceed.

• Our otters probably aren't literally indestructible. Please don't take this as a challenge, he's been through enough.