July 2007
33 posts
“From the 1920s (and perhaps earlier) to the 1980s, the block in front of an...”
– Timonthy Williams and Cassi Feldmen ~ New York Times
Street Games
The New York Times has an article on the decline of games like stick ball and skully on the streets of New York. There’s something about playing a game in the middle of a quiet street. It requires a mixture of focus and obliviousness not easily found on a grass field or behind a fenced in playground. You and your friends have taken over a piece of the adult world. The municipal laws...
June 2007
24 posts
A Plastic Legacy
When looking back at past generations we often reference the artifacts they created and used in their daily lives as way to understand them.
The music, fashion, literature, cinema, and design artifacts of our forebarers have become the lenses through which we judge them. We measure our ancestors’ value by how well they entertain us. The stories we tell are the legacies we leave. What stories...
“One reason we have so little faith in the future is that the shape of things to...”
–
Peter Lunenfeld ~ Adobe Design Center Think Tank
The Playgoda
The Playgoda is an impressive structure constructed completely without fasteners. It was designed by Gregg Fleishman, an architect, designer, artist and inventor, based in Southern California. I don’t know if I’d let my kid play on it though. It seems more art than toy. The edges appear rigid and dangerous. There are no railings on the second level to prevent falls. I’m also...
Fly!
The Yoshida Model Airplane
“While this push propeller model airplane kit is decidedly modern in design, surprisingly, it dates from the early years of aviation history in Japan. The Crow design was the first rubber band-powered model plane to ever be built and flown in Japan. Designed and built in 1889, when its inventor was inspired while observing a crow’s wings in flight. “
...
Leap Froggin' It
The Times has a product overview (sales pitch) for Leap Frog’s new starter laptop. “ClickStart: My First Computer, from Leapfrog, is intended to transform your TV into a computing center for preschoolers. It consists of a wireless keyboard with mouse that can sit in a child’s lap, and an infrared receiving base that plugs into your TV’s audio-video jacks.” Read the entire...
“Blocks may not be as sophisticated as some toys we find in stores or on...”
– National Association for the Education of Young Children
The Timeless Way of City Creator
The architect Christopher Alexander says that order, when intelligently and intuitively applied, creates life… He claims everything we interact with is alive, or not, based on the presence, or absence of various levels of order.
Anybody interested in trying to make a city in the spirit of Christopher Alexander, using City Creator, can send it to me and I’ll post it. kwame at bangklang...
Fun With Cardboard
Here’s a neat summer vacation project for the kiddos from FoldSchool. You’ve got to have a few hours on your hands because the build out is kind of involved. Of the three pieces, the stool had shortest build time at 3.5 hours.
Above the Fold With Nick.com
The first thing my nine-year-old son does when he lands on a web site’s home page is scan it to see if there’s anything interesting to do.
What he doesn’t do is scroll. Scrolling on the web is still a pain, and not only doesn’t my son like to do it, he doesn’t even think to do it. His dominant cognitive model for visual display is TV. There’s no scrolling in TV. I’ve observed this...
American Girl Takes Over the World
In purely commercial terms, American Girl may be the most perfect brand ever conceived for girls. And by bringing “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery” to the big screen next summer they’re only going to get more perfecter. There is no other brand on the market that provides as immersive an experience as American Girl. There are books, dolls, a magazine, ridiculously elaborate...
Solar Powered Double Rainbow Maker
The MOMA gift shop is always ripe with cool stuff.
Kid's Leisure Time
“According to Kids’ Leisure Time II, a recent consumer study, commissioned by the Toy Industry Association™, Inc. and conducted by NPD, parents report that their children as young as two years of age are experts at multitasking. That means by the time they’re tweens, they are spending more time on multiple activities, such as reading, using the computer, spending time with friends, and...
Baby's first phone
David Pogue, the Times technology columnist, has done one of his gratingly corny, yet bizarrely compelling, video pieces on kid’s cell phones.
XOXO
Alan Kay has sent out a very, very rough draft of a document detailing his team’s work on the OLPC XO laptop’s Squeak and eToys software platforms. eToys is an object-oriented programming language for kids supported by the XO’s Squeak engine. The educational philosophy behind the XO is Constructivism, which promotes learning by doing. I ‘m very interested to see how XO and its third party...
8 is enough
I found this over at Core77 Studio Bullits:
Grasshopper Design, a New Zealand based firm, has designed Och-o, a children’s furniture/toy that acts as a lounger, toy cubby, and indoor/outdoor jungle gym.
The Och-o comes in two styles, plastic and upholstered foam, and is durable and long-lasting. It is designed to fit into the modern home, while providing a fun and imaginative place for...
“We have cut peepholes in fences and spied on children at play, have written...”
– Evelyn Dewey
The New Play Movement
Ann Hulbert has written an article for Slate called “The Paradox of Play: Are kids today having enough fun?” She raises an interesting question; does the very act of encouraging play diminish a kid’s experience with play?
I also like her take of the subversive nature of play and how uncomfortable it makes most adults. We’re terrified that playtime will stop being constructive...
Child Centered Design vs. Kid Centered Design
Both of these bikes, the Oko Trike and the Like A Bike – Jumper, were built for the same age group. But one of them was designed for a child and the other for a kid. The difference between a child and a kid is: A child is an extension of their parents’ and/or community’s wants, needs and norms. A kid is an independent actor exploring their wants, needs and norms within the context of their...
What do I want to be when I grow up?
The Futures Channel provides a number of tools for teachers and kids interested in the kinds of jobs out there for math and science geeks. I especially like the use of video, which lifts the discussion above dry facts to focus on the cooler aspects of a given career or topic. Video lends a fidelity and relational dynamism to online learning not possible with any other web medium, including...
The state of play
Here’s a white paper (4 MB) from last year on the state of play done by the folks over at Experientia.
“Technology is not just propelling the adult world, its forces have also set a...”
– Myriel Milicevic, Experientia
Buster!
Kristina Andersson has designed a toddler sized, rideable vacuum cleaner called Buster. Buster is intended to make cleaning fun and hopefully promote independent housekeeping skills. Its form factor evokes the fantastic, encourages the imagination and looks like piece of cool kid-sized furniture. Buster is an excellent example of the tool/toy hybrid design model currently popping up in the...