PROJECT NO. 4 - TUB TOYS
OVERVIEW: Your client just formed a new toy company to develop a new line of tub toys for the 2-4 year old boys and girls toy market. Their passion and concern is to develop a line of toys that avoid many of the stereotypes, (think cheap, plasticky, and overly-branded) often associated with large market toy maker/distributors. To avoid these connotations, they are interested in developing toys that are simple in concept and construction, while using a blend of both soft and hard materials. For their first line of toys they would like to concentrate on bath time and bath time play.
ASSIGNMENT: Your assignment is to produce a bath toy to meet the 2-4 year old target market. In doing this you will be limited in a couple of ways. First, the environment, this will be for the bath only. Secondly, manufacturing processes will be primarily limited to injection-molded plastics of a varying of durometers (levels of flexibility). A minumum number of parts will be necessary to keep costs down, no more than eight parts is recommended and mechanisms aren’t really a possibility. And lastly, co-branded products (products that bear the likeness or iconography of corporate character, such as Mickey Mouse) will not be considered at all.
TYPES OF PLAY CONSIDERED:
NARRATIVE PLAY: Third person play where the child is narrarating a sequence or action, but is not part of the story.
CREATIVE PLAY: Play where the child is involved in building or making something, can be 2D or 3D.
GAME PLAY: Play where challenges and/or rewards are present, competitive in nature.
ROLE PLAY: First person play where the child is a character in the action.
This little guy (4 years old) seemed to have an awesome time with Rocky the Whale!