Torture test
Rest assured, destruction precedes all toy creation at McDonald’s restaurants
Toys are put through a wringer before they land in a Happy Meal box,
Before kids ever see or touch a Happy Meal toy, it undergoes a battery of safety tests akin to torture treatment.
In fact, a good chunk of toy creation is based on destruction.
“We will destroy that toy. We will pull that toy apart,” said Denise Wilson, senior director of quality assurance at the Marketing Store, the agency McDonald’s uses to make its Happy Meal toys.
Toys are put through extensive stress testing — stretching, pounding, chewing, biting, twisting, temperature resistance — using various instruments that mimic a range of sizes, from the back of a 5-monthold’s mouth to an 8-year-old’s thumb.
Projectile toys even go through a “foil test”: “Geometry is the biggest thing for projectile toys,” Wilson said.
“We ensure that all the impact areas are well rounded, and the energy that has the potential of going in the face and the eye is such that it’s not going to damage the eye,” she said.
One of the tools to do this is a foil test. The idea is that foil has the same tension as an eyeball.
For all the toys, “we’re going to be twisting this, we’re going to be biting it, we’re going to be dropping it. It’s all in having the right tool, selecting the right material and having the right geometry,” Wilson said.
Once the toy is in digital 3D form, Marketing Store technicians and engineers conduct both computer and physical rounds of safety reviews with McDonald’s head office, the toy licensor and their in-house safety labs.
They then have a third-party lab also test the toys to ensure they avoid any potential danger to children.
Choking prevention McDonald’s uses a simple, clear plastic cylinder ring to test small toy parts to prevent swallowing and choking hazards.
Based on injury data, government regulations call for the gauge to test the toy width to a minimum 1.25 inches — roughly the size of the back of a baby’s throat.
McDonald’s sets the bar at 1.5 inches “so it does go above and beyond regulatory,” Wilson noted. For ball shapes and rounded shapes, they go up to the 1.75-inch gauge.
“These are our gravy tools for this to make sure that our product does not have a potential choking hazard,” she said. Little hands The Marketing Store lab also has accessibility probes to test for hand entrapment. The gauges are set up to see what happens when a child’s hand goes into the item, either twisted or straight through. They use a range of dimensions, mimicking everything from a 3-month-old’s hand to an 8-year-old’s hands.
Others test for finger entrapment, which check for everything from the pinky of a 6-month-old to the thumb of an 8-year-old.
They also have various gauges for little knuckles.
“We want to design holes and openings so that everything that goes in comes out easily,” Wilson said.
Mouth piece “We take a look at what kids are going to do with their toys. We know it’s going to go into their mouth,” Wilson said.
The bite tester is used on the parts of the toy that have the potential to be bitten off. It works like an 18month-old’s mouth to see what damage the top and bottom of their brand new teeth can do.
They use a torque test to check for parts that kids can twist off, and a tension test to try to pull the wheels off toy vehicles.
McDonald’s prefers flexible or rounded edges on all its toys, in case they are stepped on or thrown.
Under pressure One test that looks particularly torturous is called the test-to-failure fixture.
“What we’re trying to do here is trying to predict failures,” she said. This means toys breaking, being pulled apart or stomped.
The requirement for, say, a doll or Barbie-type toy is usually such that the head should not be able to pull off using 15 pounds of force, “but we’ll test it up to 200 pounds to get to the data,” she said, pointing to a dial and vice-grip style machine.
“We pull and hold for 10 seconds. And that’s the pressure we feel that the children are exerting on our different toys, and all of our toys have to make sure that they don’t break after that,” Wilson explained.