Toy Concepts - Ruben Markowitz

Concept

The idea behind this toy is to create physical printouts of digital art. A child can use the stylus to draw on the screen of the plastic tablet. Color selectors and possibly brush shape collectors may be available on the side of the tablet. A piece of printer paper may be placed under the tablet and as the child draws, the tablet in real time prints the drawing on to the paper to save for later. This toy will hopefully inspire creativity and allow children to create refridgerator art.

The idea came from an interest in drawing. There is a lot of flexibility in tablet apps that children can use, but children are not often gentle with iPads, and saving the art and printing it is often too much of a hassle. This child-proof tablet would hope to alleviate the need for expensive technology and allow children to color and create anywhere.

Concept

The concept behind the abacus guitar would be to demonstrate to a child the links between  math and music. By observing numbers change on a screen on the child-size guitar, the child must move abacus rings up and down the strings of the guitars to certain frets. Each string could be a multiple of 10 (1, 10, 100, 1000), and the frets could be numbers 0-9. The child would have to make the number by adding up the strings. Strumming would commit their answers to the guitar. The numbers could add up to make chords, and by playing numbers, the child could learn simple songs.

This idea was a combination between  my general interest in math, as well as I started learning guitar recently.

Concept

The idea behind the Kinder-Hand-Kart is a simple and fun way to combine kinetic movement with collaboration between children. Children would sit on the ends of a see-saw mounted to a kart. The see-saw would be small enough to make it safe for toddlers. The fulcrum itself would then be attached to some gearing and then some wheels. The see-saw would then power the kart forward. Stopping the cart and then resuming would then change direction.

Reflection

This was a very interesting exercise in coming up with simple yet intriguing artifacts. Generally I find myself (and the people I work with) jumping immediately to electronics and motors to make movement and math. It was very interesting to force myself to think very mechanically, trying to devise systems that could utilize electronic components but maximize the positives of mechanical systems. Robustness, simplicity, and no batteries are all features that mechanical systems can deliver and children's toys should have.