Transformer Vehicle

Project

Transforming Vehicle

Year

2016

Category

Toy Design

Product Development

Synopsis

Transforming Vehicle is a toy concept to create a sense of wonder with a simle flip. combining 2 types of vehicles into one entity, from tractor to race car.

Peekaboo

Infants have always burst out laughing when their parent plays peekaboo, hiding their face and popping back into view. This idea of object permanence that an infant has yet to comprehend was interesting to explore, the surprising element in toys to transform and reappear.

Play Lab Usability Testing

Functional prototype with a color palette.
Usability testing with 6 2-year olds in the Fisher-Price Play Lab.
Methodology: Children were shown that the vehicle could be transformed from a car to a construction vehicle. They were then observed playing freely with the foam core transforming vehicle.

Observations

2-year-old children were easily able to transform the race car to the construction vehicle.
They were able to transform the vehicle while on the ground, on their laps, as well as while in their hands.
While flipping back and forth, they used one hand to stabilize the vehicle and their other hand to flip the top.
Children tended to hold onto the front (bar) of the vehicle when carrying it around or transforming it back and forth.
They enjoyed flipping it back and forth to see the different vehicles.
Children liked looking at the various bright colors on the vehicles.
The size was good for 2-year-olds to hold, push, and carry around.

As a designer at Fisher-Price, I got the privilege to be involved with the design ideation process, mainly sketching iterations and building prototypes of potentially interesting ideas. Through an iterative process, there were several commercial model-making prototypes ranging from Thomas the Train Engine to Nickelodeon shows like Mickey's Clubhouse.

prototypes

The following examples are other prototypes that I modeled for product development to conceptualize ideas for other commercial toy lines within Fisher-Price, that eventually got to production.