Coral Connections
Coral Connections is a colorful, ocean inspired, building toy that I designed while working with Guidecraft. The toy is made of soft, pliable, recycled plastic and it teaches children about the beauty and complexity of coral reefs. These shapes were designed to be very open so children could interpret them in many different ways. There is no specific way to build with them but when combined the shapes form beautiful webs mirroring the interdependence of ecosystems. The structures expand organically growing radially rather than the traditional up and down linear growth of most construction toys. I was the primary designer on this play system and was responsible for the overall of idea and concept of the toy as well as technical details like how the pieces would be manufactured, the design of the joints, and material considerations.
This is a sketch of the 4 main building elements of the system. Each part is modeled after a different type of coral. The parts are joined together either using a ball and socket joint or a peg joint.
Suction Cup Detail, *photo courtesy of Guidecraft
Play in sand and water table *photo courtesy of Guidecraft
Packaging, sold in 2 different size sets *photo Courtesy of Guidecraft
Play with Coral Connections *photo courtesy of Guidecraft
Coral Connections Marketing Video
This video was creating by the marketing team at Guidecraft. It shows many features of the toy and its overall concept and usability.
This is a rendering of the whole system. We experimented with many different forms for each piece. We wanted each piece to resemble coral while still keeping the form open enough so kids could imagine play outcomes outside of this specific narrative (ecosystem).
This is a rendering of the sea creatures. Children can create narratives with these 6 characters.
The images above show the design process of the brain coral. The brain coral has rotational symmetry that sets up a unique non-linear building experience.
The organic nature of the brain coral made for a challenging modeling process. Here are some images showing how we were able to make the mold by dividing it into 3 parts and creating a mechanical and glue joint between the pieces.
Here is some images of the bubble coral showing the different iterations of the texture. We settled on a piece that was both organic and manufacturable.
Here are some 3D printed models showing my experiments with scale. We also sampled the products in multiple materials to test how the flexibility of the material would effect the integrity of the connections.