Makedo Pinball Wizard

 A couple of weeks ago we bought a new shelf, nothing fancy but it came in a nice long box which a certain little person claimed as his own! He is very much into making games at the moment and this was no exception, he decided to make a pinball machine.

For the most part it all went accounting to plan with the exception of the trigger to fire the ball. I watched and bit my tongue as he set about making the first version, I could see from the offset that it was doomed to fail and it would have been easy for me to step in and help but I think learning to fail is an important life skill. So, I sat back and watched. It failed. He had a strop (can't imagine where he gets that from!) Calmed down and then asked me to help. 

I explained why the first effort wouldn't work and together we came up with a new plan. We made a 'tunnel' from one piece of card and a piston from a piece of rolled up card. The tunnel is held in place with makedo and the one more makedo piece went through the piston. Then we looped an elastic band around the makedo pieces. Works a treat. The photo was take sideways on, you pull the piston back, pop the marble in the hole then let go….

Ebi-kun played with it for a good hour after he finished making it and then played with daddy the next morning before school.

You can't really see on the picture but there is a goal next to the piston, the air is to get the marble into the goal. Makedo really is a fun toy and leads to all kinds of creative making, after posting my Top Ten List Of Gifts For Boys last week I had a lot of questions about makedo so I will try and answer them for you below…

Which pack do you recommend?

We have the pack of 65 pieces and we have built some pretty big things with it, like the submarine and never managed to use the whole pack. They have some great smaller packs which would be good as a stocking stuff too. The big pack has worked well for us.

I read that pieces often break, is that true?

We haven't had any broken pieces and it gets used quite often. 

Will my 4 year old be able to use it?

For making small things he should be fine, Ebi-kun who is 8, sometimes needs help punching the holes through thick card, there is a tool provided. Sometimes it is quite difficult to get the pieces off again for little fingers, good exercises for those pincer muscles!

Is it just for boys?

Hell no, and not just for kids either! I wish I had makedo as a kid, I remember so many battles with rolls of tape and then pieces of my rocket/house/plane falling off, no thanks to gravity! Rather than 'engineering' toys marketed at girls I think open ended toys are a much better idea. If your little girl loves Princesses fine, how about she builds he own special princess castle?

Did you get paid to promote makedo?

Hahaha, nope! I really think it is a great toy and deserves promotion. Full discloser, the links are affiliate links, I don't make much from it, just about keeps me in reading material! You can buy yours HERE :D

If you have any other questions, pop them in the comments section.

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Creative Outburst Series

My friend Iluska AKAMrs Ricefield asked me to contribute to her Creative Outburst Series, it is perfect for busy moms who need something quick to amuse the kids...

Creative Outburst series from Iluska Ikeda on Vimeo.

As Ebi-kun has been off sick, we took the opportunity to try some out. We just happened to have an Ikea catalogue lying around, so we made some magazine people...

There are lots of other fun ideas in the series and you can find my post here. Come back and tell me what you tried or leave a comment on Mrs Ricefield :)

Do Rewards Crush Creative Thinking?

A couple of weeks ago Lulu sent me a very interesting video. Basically, the guy experimented with classes of kids. First he gave the kids a piece of paper with a triangle on it, he told them that if the completed the picture correctly they would get a reward (extra points I believe) but didn't tell them what the correct picture looked like. They were also given a full pack of pens and had the choice of which ever they liked.

I gave Ebi-kun this piece of paper, his reward, if he got it correct, would be a candy.

He pondered for a while on what the correct answer must be, then drew this.

Then, in the experiment, the kids were given another piece of paper with the same triangle on it but this time told they can draw whatever they like. There was no reward incentive. I did the same with Ebi-kun and this was the second drawing.....

Interesting! Even more so when you watch the video and see what the other kids in the experiment did....

That leads me back to the original question. Do rewards crush creative thinking? I believe they do, there is the argument that rewards are motivational but I am not convinced that they are, or should I say, maybe they are for some people but certainly not for all. I am including myself in the last group. 

I don't think the experiment was set up that well, not for proper scientific purposes but it does have an interesting conclusion that I think should be looked at more deeply.

I am interested to know what happens with your kids if you do this experiment, if you do it, please come back and let me know how it went!

So, what do you think? Do rewards crush creative thinking? let me know in the comments section below...

Inspiration Sunday with PJ of Makedo

Anyone who reads my blog regualry will know we are big fans of imaginative play and that includes the use of makedo. I am so chuffed interview PJ from makedo today!

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.... 

Paul Justin, but I like to go by PJ. I’m a Melbourne boy through and through… love this city. I am a product designer by training but tend to lace my products with a little invention. Makedo is my latest (and greatest). I love simple things that have complex outcomes. I hate things being more complex than is necessary. 

2. Where do you get your inspiration from? 

My 4 children continually inspire me. Each is a well of unlimited creative potential who challenge me daily to be better and do better. They planted the seed that became Makedo. Now there is a tree to climb, shade to sit and fruit to eat, together. 

I observe voraciously – the world and the world wide web. 

I take great pleasure in hyper-linking my way to unknown knowledge. I find that inspiration is totally contingent on the lens you view through. When I am trying to solve a problem, the solution can reveal itself anywhere - from nature, to a line of text, to an image on Pinterest or from reading a technical document. 

I use Pinterest to capture what I can. 

3. Tell us about your business...

Makedo is first and foremost an idea. It is a way of thinking about play and creativity in an unstructured way. Anything is possible and there is no right or wrong way to reach an outcome. 

As a toy company, we are designers of parts or components if you will, that help kids unleash their creativity - allowing them to make almost anything they can imagine from everyday materials around them. All of a sudden with the help of our Safe-saw, Re-pins and Lock-hinges a few cardboard boxes transform into a Dollhouse, Car or Robot.

4. What led you to start your business.... 

My own children inspired me to start my business. Every weekend, my son Ezra (then 5) would come to me with an idea of something to make. One week it was a robot costume, the next a playhouse and then a spaceship so he could fly to the moon! 

At the same time I was thinking about my kids education and was inspired by great minds like Ken Robinson, Noam Chomsky and Lev Vigotsky who highlight the importance of creativity to learning. 

I believe creativity is the currency of tomorrow and I wanted to nurture this creative thinking in my own kids. 

Frustrated with sticky tape and glue to connect things (both functionally and environmentally) I set myself a design brief to create a construction system that made it easy for kids to create anything from their imagination. I wanted a system that taught kids not what to think but how to think, a type of open-ended creativity missing from so many kids products today - and so came Makedo.

5. What does an average day look like for you?

I wake around 6:30am and with my wife spend the next hour and a half racing around getting our kids ready for school. I will then do the school drop off which is on the way to the office. 

Sitting down with an espresso, I will catch up on the overnight emails and plan out the day (which never turns out as planned). I do not have a strict rhythm so each day dances to its own beat. 

I have my head in design, sales, marketing, production and finance. My team is amazing. We are young and dynamic so things are always changing, which I love. 

A better than average day would see me in product development experimenting with new concepts, brainstorming with my very talented team, eating a home-made lunch, seeing the sky, getting inspired and Pinning all about it, thinking deeply about where to take Makedo next. 

I tend to leave work later than I should but usually get home in time to read to the kids before they fall asleep. My wife and I have dinner and catch up on the day, then tidy-up until we crash. 

6. What is the one thing about your job that makes your heart sing? 

Seeing all the incredible Makedo creations that get sent to us from kids and designers around the world and being able to share them on to our community and inspire others. I also take great pleasure hearing from all the parents and educators who write to us telling us about the real and positive impact Makedo is having on their children’s play and learning. I never quite got my head around how impactful Makedo could be so I’m both surprised and delighted by what it is doing. 

7. Share a secret with us that has never been shared online before 

I once convinced my younger sister to lend me her bike so I could turn it into a billy cart. I promised I would put it back together when I was done, but the bike didn’t quite come back together the way I had expected…oops. 

Makedo is the creation of Melbourne designer Paul Justin, who left the corporate world and set up a studio overlooking his backyard. He was inspired to invent Makedo by his young children. Wanting to nurture their creativity, Justin conceived of the idea to fuse design, creative play and sustainability. With that, Makedo was born. 

3 years later, Makedo is now stocked by Selfridges, Guggenheim Museum and The London Design Museum, Fat Brain Toys and Mindware. Makedo is the winner of coveted top US and International Parenting awards as well as top international design awards, including a Red Dot. It has been touted as the “world’s best toy” by Wired and as a creative system that makes “Lego look positively limiting” by 

design bible, Core 77. 

Check out the Makedo range and what kids around the world are making on Makedo’s website. 

Website : https://mymakedo.com 

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/makedo?ref=tn_tnmn 

Twitter : https://twitter.com/Makedo 

Pinterest : http://pinterest.com/makedo/

Doing the robot...

What to do with an Amazon box, 2 milk cartons, 2 passata cartons and some makedo?

Make a wearable robot outfit of course!

Villa Carton Review & Giveaway

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a great new (to me) site called, Villa Carton. If you love ideas to help your children grow their imagination, you will LOVE this site.

Dutch artists Manon and Ruud van den Broek set up Villa Carton with the intention to design toys that stimulate the imagination, have educational value and are fun to play with. So as you can see, they are right up my alley!

Manon kindly send us one of the great colouring costumes to try out and two others to give away!

Not only do they have great dress up outfits, there are also storage boxes (I am so in love with this kitchen set!), flip dolls and building blocks.

Ebi-kun has had a couple of days off sick this week so it was a great activity to keep him busy. I showed him the kits and said he could pick one, he got really excited and exclaimed that it was a brilliant idea! The costumes are printed on 100% cotton and come with 4 fabric markers. Ebi-kun chose the pirate outfit and got busy.

Ebi-kun said "I think these are really great because kids can pick their favourite colours and colour the outfit in their own design. You can still play in it, even if you don't finish colouring it in all in one day, then you can do some more colouring another day"

The outfits are multi-size aimed at kids from 3-8 years old, they fasten under the arms and at the neck with a ties so they are adjustable depending on the size of the child. There are lots of different styles to choose from, I will keep it a secret the two that I have to give away, that way it will be a nice surprise!

So, how would you like to win an outfit? They would make a perfect socking filler! All you have to do is go over to the Villa Carton website and take a look at their products then come back and tell me which specific item you think your child would like the most. Fill in the form below and I will pick two winners by random generator December 5th, 9am EST. Open worldwide.

If you would like to double you chance at winning, you can enter again over at My Organized Chaos.

Our Big Kids Collaboration

I have impatiently been waiting for a special delivery after hearing that the latest batch of magazines had been mailed out. Finally, it arrived yesterday evening! The new Big Kids Magazine. Big Kids is a clever concept dreamt up by Australian artists, Jo Pollitt and Lilly Blue. The idea is that of a magazine where children and artists work side by side and the finished result is for both children and adults. BIG stands for Bravery Imagination and Generosity and it encourages creativity and curiosity, as you know, this is right up my street!

We are excited to have our memory game in the magazine this time round, in fact the whole magazine is full of games as this issues theme is Game On. Ebi-kun has already had me playing one of the board games 3 times, and the dinner nearly got burnt because of it! Plus it sparked his imagination to make another game of his own. Our memory game has been played many times since we made it and would be a fun addition to any games drawer.

If you would like to grab yourself a copy, you can do so HERE and also pre-order the next issue.

Ebi-kun is named...

As Maker Of The Month over at makedo!

Somewhat of a surprise, when I tweeted about his Starship, I had no idea there was such a thing! The sub is still in one piece and takes up half the living room! We were talking about it yesterday and thought it would be great fun to take a pile of card down to the park and invite friends round to make something massive. I'm not sure what the maker Of The Month prize is, but if it is more make do pieces we will have to try and organize it.

When it is too hot to play outside try going...

...on a mission to the bottom of the ocean! 

I pulled all the card that I had saved from the StarShip out of the cupboard yesterday, and Ebi-kun decided he wanted to find the Lost City Of Atlantis. This of course would need a submarine. We did work together building this one, we had a box with a clear plastic lid which made a perfect window and he has a periscope so I made a hole in the top for that. The other side had a lift up flap door using the hinges. It is all held together with the makedo pieces I talked about before. It still amazes me how few pieces you need to build a massive sturdy structure.

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Makedo

My mate Di got Ebi-kun a pack of Makedo for his birthday and they are BRILLIANT. Everyone knows a kids loves a cardboard box, well Makedo are easy to use connectors so you can fasten the boxes together without using 74 rolls of tape.

The set came with a punch/saw, hinges and the blue clips. You simple punch a hole in the cardboard then push the clip through and slid the second part of the clip onto the end. The way it is designed the clip holes tight until you squeeze the back piece to release it, this is a bit difficult for little ones to do.

make do parts

We happened to have a load of boxes that hadn't yet made it to the recycling so there has been a lot of building fun going on. He invited a couple of friends round to help build the star ship but I think they got fed up with him bossing them around. He had a specific idea in his head of what this was going to look like but they kept doing it 'wrong'. I left them to it and helped him finish it off later in the day.

Not only is the Makedo kit easy to build with, it is great for dismantling too, it only took me a few minutes to put the whole thing apart and store the card (so we can get it out and build something new another day).

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How to make homework more exciting...

Ebi-kun has taken to building den's recently, it usually involves several chairs and a sheet or two and a pile of large laundry clips to hold it all together. These den's seem to be a favourite place to read or study. I'm not sure why it is more exciting to do it in his den but I am not complaining.

I remember making similar hideouts in the garden, simple play but oh so much fun!

Celebrity Post and poetry

The celebrity? That would be me, well I am according to Se7en + 1!

And the Poet? That would also be me, although I doubt I will win any awards for my work.

Wondering what on earth I am talking about? Then go and check out THIS post