Portfolio / Gigantic 3D Printed Lawn Darts

Lawn darts. If you are old enough to remember them, you are probably aware of why the sharp-tipped projectile toys were banned from sale in the United States in the 1980s. Mostly relegated to memory and horror stories, countless dusty sets surely linger within the garages of those who wanted the Consumer Product Safety Commission to (literally) get off their lawn.

Thus, we were a bit surprised when we were asked by NBC to not only fabricate lawn darts, but ridiculously over-sized lawn darts. Fortunately, the darts were only meant to be used as props on NBC’s Late Night Jimmy Fallon. After a few prototypes, the art directors of Late Night settled on a size and shape for the darts and we set out to fabricate the enormous multi-colored missiles. The bodies consisted of three pieces of 3D-printed ABS plastic, an aluminum handle and laser-cut plastic fins. The parts were given a rubberized coating and then tapped and joined onto a threaded rod.