Due to the constantly growing head of children one has to buy a new helmet for their kids every few years which is expensive and inefficient. Designing a helmet that is simply growing with the kids head size not only solves this issue but also saves resources and costs.

The first thing a bicycle helmet has to do is save the head from injuries while biking. Thats why we used the innovative material d3o in the shell of the helmet.
D3o is a material that locks together to absorb and disperse energy on shock, before instantly returning to a flexible state.

Discovering the possibilities and varieties a bicycle helmet can look like but is also giving enough stability to protect the head we created some models out of clay as well as foam.
The model we wanted to continue with consists of eight protection elements which are partially connected with strong and flat rods to ensure the stability and to keep the elements in place. The gaps between the elements are big enough to ensure ventilation but small enough to prevent the curbside from injuring the head.

To test our design we built it out of semi hard foam to simulate the d3o material. Focus of the test was to improve the order and shape of the elements as well as checking the ability of fitting different sized heads.
Due to a stretchable layer underneath the shell the gap between the elements can increase to achieve a wider diameter.

To show the final result of this semester project we built the helmet 1:1 with the main functions to enable and test the spreading of the elements making the helmet growable.

iF Student Design Award [2016]
Nominated for the Staged Design Award 2016