Inspired by timeless quality wooden toys, we strove to create a long-lasting emotional product that may help to assemble childhood dreams into a bright future. Life finds a way of emerging, children find ways of playing. They use what is at hand, merging contexts and scales with their endless imagination. Everything makes sense. Play, observation, discussion and design led us to conceiving a cohesive system of toys that embody this natural ability we would all like to keep in touch with.
The child’s play experience matures with him or her and is kept enthusiastic by a series of discoveries achieved through combination. This pretend world of toys truly comes to life as their combination leads to increasingly complex interactions informed by deep research into children’s physical and psychological development. Discoveries are made over years of play, culminating in a single object that may last a lifetime: an alarm clock!
Experimenting
Various iterations of experiments were carried out the the themes of perception and ambiguity. When the project evolved towards continually relevant products and children, we approached our outcome by investigation children’s discoveries through combination and play.
Making
Our countless pages of sketches and discussion were carefully modelled in 3D and made ready for prototyping. Some parts where milled or carved straight from solid beechwood. Others were rapid prototyped and finished off by hand. In any case there was a lot of sanding to do!
Testing
We took the finished product to a nursery school and unleashed nine 2-6 year old children on it! The results amazed us, as they validated many of the design decisions taken in the final stages.
Pulling hidden objects from "Curiosity Box"
Rattle gets taken off a baby by girl who realised it would fit nicely in a whole in the car's body
There is a lot more to the push-along car!
Spinning top is spun at age 3 1/2
front of clock when complete
back of clock when complete
This project was developed by Chronosome Lab as part of the Innovation Design Engineering Ma/Msc for the Royal College of Art and Imperial College.
made by
Anirudha Surabhi
Christopher Black
Christina Biliouri
Antonio Fernandes
Graduating 2010
www.littlebang.info
