Kiddy Crawler LLC Partners with Advanced Prototype Molding for their "Crawligator" Product Design

Stacey Kohler approached Advanced Prototype Molding after she received a patent for a device to help infants learn to crawl and make tummy time fun. It was a brand from the '60s called The Crawligator, and it hadn’t been on the market in 50 years.

She provided photos and an outdated design that needed to be updated to the latest child safety standards. In the design phase, APM changed the old rotomolded design into an injection molded design for faster manufacturing. Before moving forward with production, we recommended developing a 3D printed part to confirm the design. After the 3D part was approved, we proceeded to a silicone mold to produce 10 additional pieces for supplementary production quality testing. Stacey was able to deliver these prototypes out for potential partners to review. She was also able to send the Crawligator to a facility that tested for child safety. Once the testing was completed we made a few tweaks to the Crawligator design and moved forward with steel tooling for production parts. We are now running parts daily to keep up with the demand for this product.

The Crawligator is a JPMA Innovation Award-winning developmental toy that provides mobility and promotes natural crawling movement. It was featured on ABC's World News Tonight with David Muir's “Made In America” segment as well as several other media outlets and publications.

• The project required meeting specific guidelines set forth by children's safety board
• The partnership required the ability to pivot to the customer's quickly changing needs due to demand.

• We were able to help the customer to go from an original idea to a full production
• Our company was able to work with the customer from start to finish, instead of using several different firms for different aspects of the job.
• We attended Walmart Open Call with the customer to support her and help with any possible questions related to manufacturing.