AME Ind. Design Project - Tot Clubs: Testing Fixture

Tot Clubs LLC (totclubs.com) designs and sells toddler golf club sets for children ages one through four. The heads are blow-molded HDPE and the sets are sold direct-to-consumer via our website. We completed our first commercial phase with approximately 500 orders driven entirely by organic demand, including a feature article written specifically about our product in MyGolfSpy, a viral moment at the PGA Show through an authorized reseller, and notable brand visibility at the Masters Par 3 Contest when Jordan Spieth’s daughter used our clubs. We are currently transitioning to contract manufacturing and are actively working on next-generation product design.

We are seeking a collaboration with Notre Dame engineering students on the following areas. We are open to this being structured as a capstone project, a design course project, or another format that fits the program. We can provide physical product samples, existing dimensional references, access to our contract assembler for manufacturability feedback, and real warranty and failure data to inform load case assumptions.

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This particular project will require a team of students to perform independent design projects on the design of a new testing fixture to be used with existing clubs and any new designs (from the other Tot Clubs project).  This will include the designing, prototyping, and testing of a repeatable, low-cost fixture that simulates real use and abuse loading. This would include swing impact, drop on a hard surface, and leverage and torque on the hosel. The goal is not a laboratory-grade setup but a consistent and documented protocol that can be used to baseline the current product, validate design and material changes before committing to new tooling, and build an ongoing quality control testing capability.