Project Breakdown
Industry: Consumer Goods
Product: Bicycle Helmet

The Vision

Hyperganic Core is a breakthrough software platform for AI-based design and engineering of complex and intricate physical objects, ready for output on Industrial 3D Printers. In this case study, Hyperganic is reinventing the design and manufacturing of bicycle helmets through an automated mass customization workflow that makes individualized safety a reality.

Achieving the Vision through Algorithmic Engineering

A bicycle helmet needs to balance design, comfort and, above all, safety. Mass production methods and traditional manual design tools severely limit the creative freedom of designers and their abilities to engineer for optimum performance. Because a handful of sizes need to fit the full spectrum of human heads, cyclists have trouble finding a balance between safe fit and comfort.

Hyperganic Core, Hyperganic’s platform for Algorithmic Engineering, enables a completely new automated workflow and manufacturing process. The team built an automated workflow from individual 3D head scan to final 3D-printed end product. The design engine takes the input information of the individual 3D cyclist’s head scan, historical data of crash impact statistics and a previously defined helmet shape to generatively design an individualized helmet. The output is a ready-to-print helmet.

The central part is filled with algorithmic patterns that have specific properties. They provide protection and support exactly where they are needed and optimize the airflow for optimum aerodynamics. For additional shock absorption and comfort, specially designed 3D-printed silicon inlays where added to the inside of the shell.

This A.I.-driven process results in a 3D-printed helmet that fits the rider perfectly, generated for individual comfort, style and safety.

Industrial 3D Printing and A.I.-based design are promising to shift the elements of this equation in a dramatic way.

In this new paradigm, designers have unprecedented freedom. Engineers can work with complex and intricate shapes and even use digital materials to change physical properties selectively. Since every printed object is unique, products can be customized for each individual person.

In this case study, the Hyperganic team worked with partners to implement the entire automated workflow from a 3D head scan to a printed bicycle helmet.

The study clearly demonstrates the potential for fully automated individualization workflows. Creative What-If scenarios can quickly be tested. Data coming from many sources, from design to production, can automatically be taken into account and used in the generation of each subsequent object.

By using Hyperganic Core to encapsulate time-consuming engineering tasks in A.I. components, designers are empowered to build objects of unprecedented intricacy and functionality.