Teenage Ninja Turtles + Streetsharks (by Mattel) – show the common thread of anthropomorphism in toy design

Robots (by Mattel) – show interesting way of appropriating real-world objects. also have lots of articulation of joints and apparent customization, both hot in toy design right now.

Batmobile – “cultural resonance” = using features common in everyday life, like retractable handles from carry-on luggage being used as a toy element.

Immersive role-play is an industry trend. kids act out parts.

3 C’s of good toy design: Customizing, Collectibility, Competition.

There are open offices for new inventors in both El Segundo and New York.

Diddybox = upscale song-singing toy.
Needies need pets.

FAO Schwartz
58th and 5th Avenue, ph 212-644-9400,

Toy Tokyo
121 2nd Avenue (second floor)
between St. Marks Place and 7th St.

Kidrobot NY
126 Prince St.
New York, NY 10012
212.966.6688

360 toy group
239 Eldridge st. (just below houston, a block west of 1st ave.) (Next to NORT/Recon)

Forbidden planet
840 Broadway (corner of 13th Street and Broadway)

It’s “a” nother Hit
131 W. 33rd Street (between 6th and 7th ave)

Marchand De Legumes
252 Elizabeth Street, Manhattan
212 965 1954

Recon
237 Eldridge Street (Next to NORT/360 Toy Group)

kar’ikter
19 Prince Street
(Between Elizabeth & Mott)

A Bear’s Place
789 Lexington Avenue
Wonderful, whimsical furniture and toys for younger kids abound here,
but there aren’t as many bears as you’d expect! A Bear’s Place is
perfect for the two to six set, offering loads of tutus, puppets, and
early learning toys.

Big Fun
636 Hudson Street

Classic Toys
218 Sullivan Street (btwn Bleeker and W. 3rd.)
Kids can reenact famous battles, from the Bulge to the Alamo, with
historically accurate soldier sets available here. Classic also carries
model cars, puppets, stuffed animals, and other “classic” toys.

Geppetto’s Toy Box1
10 Christopher Street (at Gay St.)
Not a place for the Toys R Us afficionado, Geppeto’s is reminiscent of
the old fashioned toy store, with a supply of well-made, crafted
specialty toys built to last. Brands include Brio, Playmobil, Corolle,
Lamaze, Steif, Wild Planet, and Creativity Kids.

The Scholastic Store
557 Broadway
Scholastic’s first-ever retail outlet, the Scholastic Store offers
5,500 square feet of Scholastic products

Common mistakes made by students:
–don’t think they can prototype rough
–don’t listen to users
–think they’re right
–focus on tools

Good projects:
–document well
–respond to users
–use hi + low fi rough idea models
–don’t focus on specs

Advice:
–check out small toy shops like Toy Tokyo
–mimic developments in science and technology (e.g. hotwheels came at a time of highway expansion)
–mimic grown-up activities (Pretend Play)
–make short video clips
–tell a story

Tech Toys:
–Teddy Ruxpin. Internal tap-deck w/ 200 word vocabulary
–GigaPets – 1997
–Furby – 1995
–Lego Mindstorms
–Hotwheels – sensors on tracks and garages

Hotwheels:
–Speed
–Power
–Performance
–Attitude

Recommended Reading:
–”The Illusion of Life”, by Frank Thomas (Disney animator)

What’s Happening:
–New tools
–New materials
–New manufacturing
–Packaging
–Brand identity
–Sex identity
–Age specificity
–Length of play

Interviews:
–kid interviews – interview well in groups or pairs in a natural setting
–Focus groups – good in home? Grouping/ordering of features/concepts

Presentations:
–short video clips
–1 page summary
–tell a story

Biosphere Habitat by Discovery

Peer through the magnifying lens and watch your miniature, self-contained world bustle with life!
Raise plants, animals and insects.
Included “rain maker” lets you cool off your critters with a spray mist.
Digital readout that displays temperature and humidity.
Awesome, futuristic design.
Realistic rock and landscape formations with a built-in lagoon.
Terrarium is encased in clear plastic.

Span Circuits Junior by Elenco

Snap Circuits Junior makes learning electronics a “snap”. You can build over 100 projects just by following the colorful pictures in the manual. Enjoy hours of educational fun while learning electronics. You can make projects such as flash lights, doorbell, and AM radios.

Geomag Panels

Geomag is a captivating line of magnetic construction sets providing creative learning and hours of play for children ages three and up. Using simple magnetic rods and spheres, children can create a myriad of static and mobile structures: geometric shapes, buildings, spinning tops and more.

Geomag’s colorful Panels add sparkling chromatic effects and expanded building possibilities to the classic Geomag concept. Insert these brilliantly colored translucent shapes between the rods and spheres to create unique new forms and strengthen models constructed using the original rods and spheres.

Teaching Tank by Longevity Lifestyles

For science lessons that really make a difference, use The Teaching Tank® and The Teaching Tank® Discovery Books©. These are the best science teaching aids available to make your science curriculum come alive. Not only can you view roots, worms, ants, etc. in the tank, you can watch crystals grow, see chemical reactions as they progress, watch the effect of enzymes in fruit, see what density really is, etc. This is very visual and very hands-on. The three accompanying books offer 150 great investigations that will get you started and excited about science.

Barbie “Cook With Me” Smart Kitchen

From the Manufacturer:
The new Barbie “Cook with Me Smart Kitchen” is definitely the most advanced – and most fun- play kitchen ever. This playset uses today’s top technology to create a unique, interactive experience for the little chef. The smart kitchen features a modern design, appliances that recognize what’s being “cooked,” scannable meal cards, a cookbook, and fun messages and phrases from Chef Barbie. With lots of food items and all the accessories found in the world’s best kitchens, this toy lets girls cook up a great time!

Cabbage Patch Kids

From the Manufacturer:
Every kid is a unique one-of-a-kind. No two are alike! Original scale kids with diaper, fabric fashion, socks, shoes, and authentic Xavier Roberts Signature. Includes adoption certificate, with aname and birthdate. A follow-up postcard and birthday card (or e-card) will be mailed to each kid. Open-face window box collector packaging.

Polly Pocket – Cool Careers Gift Set with 4 Dolls and 28 Fashions & Accessories

From the Manufacturer:
Polly, Rick, Lila, and Lea come with 28 fashions and accessories that allow girls to play out a variety of cool careers!

Home Depot Chainsaw with Sound

From the Manufacturer:
This chainsaw simulates real chainsaw action and sounds. Push the button to start the engine, chain will accelerate with the press of the trigger.

Hershey’s Smore’s Maker

From the Manufacturer:
Hershey’s Smore’s Maker is a campfire right in your house! Two people can heat up their marshmallows at the same time and when they are hot and gooey take them out of the safe heating element and put them on Hershey’s chocolate and graham crackers. Smoosh together for your very own S’mores! Uses ingredients from home.

Scholastic Desk Pro

Brand new desktop format with adjustable flat panel display. 60 Activities teach English, Spanish, math, science, geography, history, languages, music, and logic skills. Artificial Intelligence improves all-around learning with advanced level memory. Includes word processor and personal organizer with address book, money manager and calculator. 3 additional cd-roms provide more activities. Music composer and mixer, and 2 player mode provides dual user facility for additional interaction.

This AquaPets toy is amazingly simple. A miniature figure floats in water. It’s two arms are attached with fishing wire to the base. Pressing one of the buttons causes the fishing wires to alternately yank the arms so that the figure looks like it dances in the water. Somehow fun to watch.

Here is a flying saucer-like thing. You point the infra-red gun at it, and it spins and flies upward. Fun to watch, but doesn’t move side-to-side.

Classic lazertag from Hasbro, but with wireless radio headset walkie talkies. The box seems to emphasize the “900MHz” radios more than the guns. Interesting from a marketing perspective.

The famous Robosapien robot from Wow Wee. The interesting thing to me again was the emphasis on tech specs. In this case, it’s the “Fully Articulated Motion” that caught my attention.

This is the iQuest, a learning tool from Leapfrog. The cartridges hold study guides based on hundreds of actual school textbooks. Blank cartridges can be filled with content downloaded from the Internet onto the “Mind Station”. Notice the swappable face-plates for the iQuest – very smart accessorizing and use of updated content. There’s something about customized skins and faceplates that drives people crazy.

Another the LeapPad, also from Leapfrog. This one has a stylus that allows kids to play tracks corresponding to parts of an interactive book placed on the pad. Each time a kid turns a page, they must press “Go” with the stylus. Each page has the “Go” button at a different place on the left side of the page, so the LeapPad is able to discriminate between pages.

“Club Birthday” and “Masquerade Madness” from Mattel. These are two of the many many Barbie-like accessorized dolls for girls. Almost the entire girls section in Toys R Us consists of dolls just like this – with clothes, jewelry, and some kind of context about where the doll might be going dressed like this. Some include DVDs – I wonder what’s on them.

HitClips from Tiger. These are small music players marketed for girls. Tiny cartridges hold individual songs, and are inserted into the player. Players have a headphone jack and small ear-buds. Some cartridges and players can contain trivia information that is displayed on the small LCD panel. I liked the one that is basically just a clip-on headphone.

Factor Frenzy from Learning Resources. This is a talking multiplication game. I’m not sure exactly how the game-play goes, but it seems to be about pressuring you to think fast trains you to learn your times-tables. The table-like nature of the game looks good, and it’s easy to imagine some frantic cooperative multiplication going on with this thing.

Walking into FAO Schwartz was a huge difference from the cluttered cheap feeling in ToysRUs. The entrance is covered with very high quality stuffed animals. Something about these -both the high quality look and feel – makes them inherently attractive compared to most interactive toys.

The Friends With You plush dolls were the most remarkable toys at FAO Schwartz. Each one had distinct character and interesting design. This one, Barbie, has a Ku-Klux-Klan hood (or Abu Ghraib) over its head. The materials are high quality and they are a nice and substantial size.

This is Mr. TTT, another plush from Friends With You. Mr. TTT is composed of three seperate pillow-shapes connected with a thick tether. You can disconnect them and give one to a friend (or so the story goes). The modularity of these was very interesting. Once again, they felt substantial in size and materials. Really a high-quality doll.

Poppings, another from Friends With You. Their designs are all excellent.

FAO Schwartz had some really nice Japanese-style collectible toys. I’m not sure what these are called. Some had pseudo-tribal markings all over them. Others had bar-codes. I really liked the totally blank ones that enable you to paint your own.

Slightly freaky, FAO Schwartz has a huge display where you can select the features of a custom doll. They make them on the spot.

Now for the Discovery Channel Store toys. This is a Remote Control Spy Listener from Discovery. The car has a microphone that feeds via radio-link to a headset. Kids can spy on their parents. Telepresence for toddlers. Simple but effective.

Another Spy Listener from Discovery, this time in a spring-loaded hand-held gun-style device. I’m not sure what the sunglasses are for, but you’ve got to be discreet when spying on Mom and Dad.

Taking the ant farm to the next level is Discovery’s Biosphere Habitat. It has automated temperature control and a spray watering system that allows you to grow plant and insect life. There is a magnified viewing hole and various other accessories. The shape and design is nice.

THe Motion Music Maker from Discovery allows kids to compose music by waving their hands over four infra-red sensors. I didn’t see this product in the store, but it was listed on the website. I don’t know what parameters of the music you can control.

These are Music Blocks from Neurosmith. I did not see Neurosmith toys in any stores (probablybecause Neurosmith went out of business), but I’m listing them here because of their great design. Cartridges contain music samples that can then be changed and re-arranged by turning or changing the positions of the blocks. This is a really inspirational toy because it’s basically a sampling station for kids.

This is Musini, another great toy from Neurosmith. Vibrations from kids jumping around sets off the tempo and rhythm of the music. I’ve seen a couple of rip-offs of this idea. I’m not sure what other parameters can be played with.

Tech overview
A Pic microcontroller handles all the sensing and display on each board. The networking on each board is handled by the Cobox Micro, which receives serial data from the Pic and translates it into a TCP stream sent to a Java chat server. The Java chat server relays that message to the other board (and any observers).

Sensors
The sensing of moves relies on Hall Effect sensors embedded underneath the surface of the board. Each stone contains a small magnet that activates the Hall sensor when placed on the board. Each activated sensor feeds into a parallel-in, serial-out 8-bit shift register. Due to the nature of the game, only one sensor will be activated per move.

Display
The display of the opponent’s moves results from an inductive coil also embedded underneath the surface of the board at each intersection. Also in each stone is a coil and LED in series that makes the stone light up when placed above the activated inductive coil in the board. Power to the inductive coils is fed in a row-column csanning matrix. A series of 3 to 8 demultiplexers send power to one row at a time. Serial-in to parallel-out 8-bit shift registers control which coils in a given row are active.

My midterm project is a networked go board. This project has personal use to me since when I play go, it is usually online. I rarely have the opportunity to be in the same room with another go player for long enough to have a good game. The go board is an important part of the ritualistic quality of the game – something that is notably missing in the online versions.

The Networked Go Board addresses this problem by providing a standard simple physical go board networked to another similar go board at a remote location. Players make moves as they would in a normal game – by placing stones on the board. These stone placements are represented on the opponent’s board via lit LEDs. The opponent may then place the player’s stones over the lit LEDs and make his or her own move in the same fashion.