Ray Gun (MET TTP 2018)

Ray Guns, photo: Ayla Pilsworth [image info]

3. Ray Gun

Inspired by the sheet metal toys in the museum, as well as space-age imagery, we designed a retro toy intended as a desk toy or collector's item. We wanted to recreate pre-plastic toys, choosing to use wood and metal instead of acrylic.

We tried to make the toy as light as possible by minimising the amount of wood used to make the frame, only keeping enough to support the spring mechanism inside and the recycled can cover. The outer shell is made from recycled drinks cans, which happen to be printed with bright colours echoing the old cartoons and posters images of sci-fi cities and rockets we were inspired by.

We wanted to allow two or more people to play together, so we added the spot-welded metal funnel at the front of the ray gun, to catch scrunched paper balls projected from other ray guns using a spring mechanism.