300 trophies for Dynapac – with a flexing top

Project: 300 trophies for Dynapac – featuring a top that flexes vertically, mirroring the company's SEISMIC technology.

The customer and the project

Dynapac manufactures road construction and soil compaction machinery. Their SEISMIC technology automatically detects the resonance frequency between the drum and the ground, adjusting vibration in real-time – resulting in, according to Dynapac, up to 25% lower fuel consumption. Our mission was to produce 300 trophies that capture that exact motion: something that swings.

The solution: a trophy that moves

The trophy is built in layers on a black base plinth with the company name in relief. At the top sit two arches – one black and one red – representing the drum. The upper section is mounted on an S-shaped spring, allowing the top to flex vertically: press it down and it springs right back. This isn't just decoration, it's the entire point of the object, and also the hardest part to nail across a production run of 300 units.

The material: semiflexible, not soft

The spring requires a material that yields and returns without becoming limp. The choice fell on a semiflexible material – noticeably harder than TPU – providing resilient spring action rather than just bending. The right feel didn't come from the material alone, but from the geometry: we adjusted the spring thickness in 0.1 mm increments and tested until the travel and force felt just right. Too thin resulted in a limp top, too thick in a top that barely moved.

All 300 trophies were post-processed with a finish-preserving agent, ensuring the matte black and red surface remains uniform across the entire series.

The challenge with moving parts in series production

• Repeatable spring action. All 300 must feel identical. The travel distance and force must stay within a tight range, or the recipient will immediately notice differences between the trophies.
• Fatigue resistance over one-time strength. A spring pressed down hundreds of times must not creep or snap. This dictates both the material choice and the manufacturing orientation of the parts.
• Iteration in tenths of a millimeter. When the functionality lies in the geometry, 0.1 mm is the difference between right and wrong. This requires physical test samples, not just simulation.
• The surface is the product. A trophy is closely inspected in the hand. A matte finish, sharp edges, and relief text on the base must hold up across the entire run – hence the post-processing.

How we approach projects like this

1. Concept and CAD. We start from the idea – here "showcase our innovation" – and develop the geometry in CAD.
2. Test samples and fine-tuning. Physical samples to hold and test the spring action on, with the geometry adjusted in tenths of a millimeter until the function is dialed in.
3. Series manufacturing. Short-run manufacturing without tooling, making 300 units with a special custom feature economically viable.
4. Post-processing, assembly, and delivery. Parts, surface treatment, assembly, and quality control in a single workflow.

What this says about short production runs

300 units is an awkward volume: too many for manual labor, too few for traditional tooling. This is precisely where toolless short-run manufacturing shines – allowing you to build in features like a spring-loaded top and fine-tune them along the way, something traditional tooling would make expensive or impossible.

Have a project with moving parts, a production run in the hundreds, or an idea ready to become a physical object? Request a quote here – or read more about toolless short production runs and prototyping.