Recently, a colleague asked me if I had already looked at the objects in Kinder Surprise to find inspiration for 3D printed hair clip models and accessories. Granted, it’s an interesting suggestion…
Kinder Surprise Eggs are pretty popular worldwide. They typically hide tiny trinkets or toys inside a plastic capsule within a chocolate egg. The designer of the famous Ferrero egg, William Salice worked for the Italian chocolate maker Ferrero between 1960 and 2007, and invented the Kids Surprise Egg in 1974. It became a big success.
Although various types of surprises are made (around 15000 designs already), they must always be small enough to fit into the egg. Therefore, the surprise objects often consist of small parts that can be easily assembled. And the mechanism for assembly usually consists of the same plastic material as the toy.
Also, many variations are made of the same concept, so inherently the surprises have features that are suitable for personalisation. The above characteristics are also common to 3D printing.
For now I document two good examples below: both are bracelets.
The “love” bracelet
The “love” bracelet is interesting because of the way the different parts can be connected to each other and for the design of the links themselves.
Words and shapes can easily vary. Something I can definitely take in my prototyping exercise.
The “stars” bracelet
The “Stars” bracelet is simpler and the components are less firmly intertwined.
But the shape is cleverly thought to turn into hearts, fruits, animals, etc.