Chances are, whether you’re a designer or not, you’ll have seen Theo Jansen’s massive kinetic sculptures walking across a beach in BMW’s advertisement. Titled the Strandbeest, these incredible automata gracefully walk across land using wind as their driving force, as they move, much like animals do, using large wooden legs in a graceful fashion. The Strandbeest was one of the reasons I fell in love with industrial design, and the fact that you can build your own miniature versions today is giving me major nostalgic feels!
The Heyzlass Mini Strandbeest is a miniature replication of Jansen’s large, hulking creature. Made out of plastic and built to be a spitting image of the original, the Mini Strandbeest comes with a fan at one end that catches the wind, propelling the legs to move in their cyclical fashion and have the entire toy gently sashay across a flat surface. Made from 117 separate parts that don’t need any special tools to assemble, the Mini Strandbeest can be built in just around 90 minutes, which is well worth the endless hours of joy you’ll get from observing one of the most fascinating mechanical actions of all time!
Designer: Heyzlass
