8 Week Project
Junior 2026
FISCH
Cat Toy
Made entirely from excess scrap materials and designed for full recyclability, Fisch is a durable, interactive cat toy that brings cats and their owners together through play.
Skills Learned
Sustainable Design
Batch Production
Marketing
Material Sourcing
Felt Offcuts
Filzfelt is left with a lot of offcuts from their custom projects and hanging panels. The felt is 100% Merino Wool, colored with plant-based dyes.
Wood Trim
Sourced from a scrap wood bin at Western Washington University, these unstained wood trim offcuts varied in length and offered an opportunity to repurpose otherwise unused material.
Skein Ties
Donated by Northwest Yarns & Mercantile, these 100% wool short yarn ties secure hanks of yarn but are often discarded due to their limited length (6-12 inches).
Sketching
Integrated grey, circular offcuts from FilzFelt into the base of each design as a visual callback to the provided scrap material.
Explored playful, familiar, and unconventional concepts designed to dangle from yarn. However, interviews with cat owners revealed a preference for the familiar fish design.
Fabrication
Wooden Handle
Used a chop saw to cut the trim into uniform handle lengths, then a drill press to create holes for threading the yarn ends through.
Braided Skein “String”
Laser cut fish and bone pieces.
Felt Pieces
Soaked and cleaned burnt felt ends.
Sorted yarn skeins by length and braided them into varying lengths to fit each toy section. Each Fisch consisted of three braided skeins.
Punched out fish eye pieces.
Branding
Doesn’t call back to toy design
First Iterations
Laser cut felt scrap pieces
Too many burnt felt edges to clean
Second Iterations
Laser cut and engraved scrap chipboard
Tested scaling
Explored best power settings for engraving
Final Iterations
Engraved relief cuts to form to toy handle better
Folded final label, adhered
with biodegradable glue
FISCH
The Fully Recyclable Cat Toy
Dynamic, dangling pieces encourage active play!
Available in three colorways for added variety.
