For this project I was tasked with making an educational toy that could be 3d printed by the user. The main concept was to make a toy that would teach kids a STEM concept, in my case I chose a simplified anatomy toy.
The first step was to conduct market research to figure out how others make children’s toys and how different concepts are simplified for fun and engaging learning experience. after settling on an idea i moved to CAD.
I wanted to focus on a couple of topics, aside from the experience gained by printing the toy itself, I wanted to teach basic anatomy of vertebrates. I chose a duck so because I felt it would be approachable to younger audiences and a fun toy to have when they finished with the project. I also wanted to teach them about pip components, the spine is intended to be printed in place to allow for fast and easy assembly.
I also made an instruction manual for the toy. I chose to take inspiration from LEGO in the raphic design of the manual not only because they are well known for their great instruction design but also because I felt it would be fairly familiar to young audiences and hopefully I could piggyback off of the familiarity of visual elements with the intended audience.
I’m very happy with the final prototype and I think I would have loved to have this kit as a kid.
There are things I would change of course, I think the ribs don’t have quite enough purchase in their slots so they can be a little loose if not glued and the neck of the ball joints that make up the spine is a bit too thin. I would want to make that more robust so it would be more durable.
Also, I don’t think this would necessarily pass safety tests so there would need to be some redesigning done in that regard. However overall as an exercise, I think it turned out really well and I’m very happy with the result.
