Hasta La Ideas

The Power Wheels Barbie Jammin’ Jeep is a battery-powered toy car that two children can ride in. Though the exterior is plastic, the $250 thing actually has a steel frame. Perhaps that’s why a group of guys in Alabama Arkansas, collectively called Barbie Jeep Racing, have selected the Power Wheels line of vehicles—which include kiddie-sized knock-offs of Wranglers, Toyota FJ Cruisers and even an Escalade—for some seriously twisted downhill racing.

They start off by breaking the drive train so that the wheels can spin freely, letting gravity propel the vehicles to speeds—and down terrain—they were never meant to handle. Then it’s Jackass meets Fisher-Price, as you’ll see in this video:

(more…)

Of all the different types of industrial designers we cover, it’s exhibit designers and toy designers that get the shortest shrift; there simply aren’t many of you lot giving out interviews. But now Lenny Panzica, a Hasbro product designer has stepped up for a Gizmodo interview explaining the design process behind the latest Transformers toy. (Panzica, by the way, is a natural fit to design the dragon-inspired “Predaking” robot; the dinosaur enthusiast has degrees in both archaeology and toy design.)

You’d think something as sophisticated as a transforming robot would be worked out almost exclusivly in CAD, so I was surprised to see how much of it is done on good ol’ pen and paper:

(more…)

The Creative Wooden Creatures kit educates and fosters the creativity of children by allowing them to create a wide range of animals by combining and rearranging various interchangeable body parts. They can discover animals from land to sea or explore and create their own creatures from octolizards to jellypedes! The combinations are endless! Abstract shapes and sustainable wood material give it unique identity and Link-n-log timelessness… a great hand-me-down from generation to generation.

Designer: Hakan Gürsu

–
Yanko Design
Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Yanko Design Store – We are about more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the YD Store!
(Turtlebugs and Spiderfrogs was originally posted on Yanko Design)

No related posts.

Andre Cassagnes, the man who invented the Etch A Sketch, has passed away.

In the 1950s Cassagnes, a French electrical technician, was installing a light switch at the factory where he worked. The switch plate had a protective decal on it, which Cassagnes removed. That decal attracted bits of metallic powder by-product present in the factory, and Cassagnes noticed that when he made pencil marks on one side of the decal, the powder gave way to the pencil tip and the marks showed up on the other side.

After observing this electrostatically-powered accident, Cassagnes spent several years harnessing this phenomenon into a handheld device. At the 1959 Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany, he pulled the sheets off of his L’Écran Magique (“Magic Screen.”) A transparent plastic sheet was lined with aluminum powder on the inside, and a joystick controlled an internal stylus that could be dragged across the screen, inside the device, to create lines. The “drawing” could be erased by shaking the device up, which redistributed the powder; small plastic particles mixed in with the powder prevented it from clumping up unevenly.

An American company called Ohio Art paid Cassagnes $25,000 for the rights—a princely sum back then—and called him in to work on a revised design. Interestingly enough, the form factor was altered to resembled the hottest home appliance of the day: The TV set. Cassagnes’ joystick was replaced by two knobs below the screen, and the entire device was rebranded the “Etch A Sketch Magic Screen.”

(more…)

Scusate se oggi ho parlato troppo di bici ma a questo non potevo resistere. Disegnato da Richard Mitchelson, il Vinil toy di Eddy Merckx è una chicca da 6 pollici che trovate su Rouleur.