CHAPTER Twelve

Miss Strawberry - Albury

Invoking an immediate sense of joy, Miss Strawberry welcomes each & every customer to the Harris Farm Albury store. Located at the entry, she stands an impressive 4.5 meters tall for all to see. But it is not just her stature that gains one’s attention. Miss Strawberry’s cheerful face engages you with her wonderful mechanical moving facial features and limbs.

Little hands can drive the mechanical strawberry by turning the wheel and will feel completely chuffed when Miss Strawberry’s facial features begin to move – the widen of her smile, the flutter of eyelashes as her eyes open and the expressive raising of her eyebrows. The interactive response of the facial features and movement of arms and legs can be seen by all who enter the store.

The infectious smile is caught by all that are welcomed into Harris Farm. Miss Strawberry creates delight to both child and adult as they begin their journey through the store. It is a wonderful introduction to the store and sets the tone for the “fun fair” retail experience.

Developed, designed and constructed over the last eight months, Miss Strawberry was conceived by FDM to provide Harris Farm with a unique, interactive mechanical creation.

The extensive design process included concept sketches, metal bending to attain the strawberry shape, development of the mechanics and the prototyping of external features such as the lips and eyes.

Miss Strawberry’s outer skin comprises of aluminium sheets which have been shaped and moulded to the internal steel frame’s profile. Each panel has been individually cut, shaped and then riveted into place. Reminiscent of mechanical tin toys of the 1880s, Miss Strawberry has a wind-up key to the rear. As with all of FDM’s designs, we like to inject a little playfulness.

With this in mind, we decided to entertain the idea of a strawberry with roller skates. This light-hearted approach, provides us the opportunity to have a little fun with the design. We like to incorporate items which give an immediate and emotive response. These items are usually featured strongly in people’s childhood memories, such as bicycle bells, music boxes, wind-up tin toys and even roller skates.

Miss Strawberry has allowed us to showcase our skills of design, fabrication and installation of such a unique creation. We love making cool stuff! We are so looking forward to seeing smiling faces beaming back at Miss Strawberry on opening day.