"McDonald's Toys - not just in happy meals" Topic

It looks like McDonald's will be getting some new toys. These ones won't be going in happy meals, but they will be printing toys to go in the happy meals.

link

I would imagine a mass deployment of this tech like this will really spur things along in the development of more, better and cheaper systems in the very near future.

The big questions is: Do you have to be a child?

That's interesting. I wonder if this is for store owned locations only or of the franchise owner is expected to buy a printer.

Haha I can't wait till they release something cool that will work for wargaming. Lines of gamers buying 10-15 happy meals just to get the tokens to print a bunch of cool tanks or something :)

You can buy the toys by themselves.

They already 3D print their artificial food, so making toys on site doesn't seem a stretch.

They sell food nowadays? Who would have guessed?

I think their cheese is already 3-D printed, since it tastes, looks, and behaves like cheap thermoplastics.

I can't wait to see the queue behind the drive-through window.

Yes, how long does it take to print up a 3" tall figure, and who is going to throw the quick bad paint job on it after it's printed?

They will need a printer that prints in color. There are several FDM versions. FDM can do multiple colors. think makerbot with higher tolerances and multiple color filaments.

The only other process is the inkjet like one that sends out hardener and dies. That is way too messy and complicated for a fast food restaurant.

They will have to dumb it down a lot and probably pre-print some of them. You can't tell a kid to come back in 30 mins for his toy. So they will be keeping stock of several items and printing more. They will probably be doing them in campaigns so you just get to select the toy you want from that set. You'd think that it would be cheaper to just to push multiple items through the supply chain instead of printing each toy at insanely higher prices. Those toys probably cost almost nothing to buy from china in batches of 2-5 million or more. Not sure how many toys they give out but it's not a small number.

So the same crew who can't figure out how to put fries in a bag (with a printout, 3 screens, and headsets) is going to print up toys that don't end up mixed in with food? Somehow I think my McDonald's trips will be even more less frequent.

To be fair, I can see where the marketing people are coming from with this one.

I remember my parents taking my two brothers and I to our local Pizza Hut after the premier of Star Wars.

My brothers got the Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca cups they wanted but, when it cam to my turn there were only Darth Vader tumblers remaining. From that moment things changed.

Those cups stayed with us all through our early teens and later adolescent years, which coincided with a growing feeling of isolationism and a sense of being somehow "different" on my part.

I am not complaining as I had a happy childhood, but I often wonder whether things may have turned out differently if the Pizza Hut had not run out of Han Solo cups.

It's just the brain child of an IT director. Won't happen.

And if it does, it will only last as long as it takes a child or two to chew up and eat one of the "toys"….

McDonald's toys are just right for kids.
Kids really love those things.