Barbie Puppy play park

Whenever I worked on a Barbie item I always found the challenge of fitting a mechanism inside a small body to be fun and rewarding when it all comes together.  the play park was a fun project that allowed the child to interact with the toy like few other toys did.

Sometimes experimenting with mechanisms and technologies can lead to a new and exciting idea.  I worked with Mike Dore and Dino Crisanti to bring this cute interactive playset to life.  The mechanism we started with was a microphone connected to a small motor.  This is one of the more hands on building projects compared to most of my work.  No CAD or 3D printing was used.  Parts were built using plastic strips and cut sheets of plastic to form what we needed.  Mechanisms were built to fit inside existing toys and what we couldn't find we sculpted.  Lots of experimenting and adjustments to find what worked and what didn't.  Once done we knew we had something special and couldn't wait to show to the Barbie group at Mattel. 

Mattel was very happy with the outcome of all our hard work and was happy to award us with Inventor Product of the Year.