HyperSnail
Project Summary
In this HyperSnail project, I and two other Mechanical Engineering students collaborated on the creation of a toy design for Spin Master LLC. What we came up with was a high-octane game in which players provide input via controllers to race snail figurines across a track.
The Task:
For this project, we were tasked by Spin Master LLC, a Canadian toy company, to come up with an idea for a toy that could be enjoyed by children within the age range of 8 to 12 years old.
Ideation:
We began our process by looking at what our toy-to-be needed to do/be. Firstly, it had to be aimed at children 8 to 12 years old. Secondly, like any toy, its main function boils down to "increasing the amount of joy in the world". After brainstorming for a toy idea, we settled on HyperSnail as our concept to build upon.
A sketch for what HyperSnail could look like
Design:
The inner workings of HyperSnail went through a handful of iterations. Some of our ideas included a water-powered design, a cable-pulled design, and a design powered by air. We decided to proceed with the air-powered design, as it appeared to be the most plausible given our resources and time available. We used SolidWorks to create conceptual models of our build.
The full build
Build
We built our prototype using foam board, surgical tubing, and a rice cakes bag. To provide air power to the mechanism, we used a handheld balloon pump. To hold the mechanism together, we used hot glue, foam adhesive, zip ties, and duct tape.