News from the world of games and toys: modern technology for children? (STEM toys)
Spielwarenmesse 2023
In early February 2023, we visited one of the largest and most significant international toy fairs, Spielwarenmesse 2023 in Nuremberg. This fair has been held annually in February, except for the recent COVID years, and showcases the latest toys and games from manufacturers worldwide. Visitors can explore and try new products, meet manufacturers, and learn more about the latest trends.
Spielwarenmesse is considered one of the most important events in the toy industry and serves as an inspiration for retailers, designers, and toy manufacturers around the globe. The fair presented a wide range of toys, games, and other products for children. From classic toys, building sets, electronic games, interactive toys to products for the youngest.
We from KINT s.r.o. also wanted to get inspired and focused on discovering new trends in STEM toys and games. We came across many interesting products that will delight not only children but also parents. Therefore, you can look forward to an expanded selection in our online store kids.kint.cz (for the Czech market only).
The best toys
The fair organizers presented and awarded a selection of top toys focused on the development and education of children. These were primarily wooden puzzles, activity boards for infants, educational recognition games for older children, and more. You can find the six award-winning innovative products from the fair here.
We paid particular attention to smaller or lesser-known brands offering very interesting and unique products. We were also impressed by some high-quality products with a long history that have no competition, as well as new “start-ups” financially and marketing-wise supported by established multinational companies.
Without being motivated by any benefits, partnerships, or paid advertising, we would like to mention a few of the following products.
Moby Dick
Moby Dick is a Japanese company that designs and manufactures construction sets made from pressed paper profiles. The sets are available in several packages and also as individual pieces. The basic set is designed for the youngest children and contains parts that allow them to build a simple house-like structure. Larger sets include more pieces for various types of construction. Another set, designed for older children, offers adjustable pieces, positioning connectors, hinges, and more. These more complex types allow for the use of imagination to create more intricate constructions.
The exhibitors told us that the construction set is mainly sold to kindergartens and schools as an educational tool. However, it is also often purchased by exhibitors or event organizers, who use the sets to create various sized structures, as well as functional and decorative constructions for cultural events.
3Doodler
3Doodler is a relatively new product from an American start-up that caught our attention because it’s not your ordinary hot glue gun, but rather a precision device that uses very narrow and accurate strands of melting (or gluing) material. From another perspective, 3Doodler can be seen as a simple 3D hand printer, meaning you create your product manually, without the need for a programming plotter.
3Doodler offers a variety of sets, materials, and accessories for different types of customers, such as children, schools, kindergartens, as well as creatives and model makers. They have two main types of pens: one for children, where the pen tip is safe, and the melting process happens at a lower temperature, ensuring that the child doesn’t burn themselves; and another for older children and adults, featuring a standard hot tip.
This is a very interesting product for a wide range of uses, fostering creativity and technical thinking, and it can also serve as a helpful tool for small household tasks.
Navir
Navir is a well-established Italian toy manufacturer in the field of optics and educational toys since 1968. The Navir booth caught our attention because it offers an extraordinary and extensive range of (not only) optical devices such as magnifying glasses, binoculars, microscopes, projectors, and more. These are fairly common devices in the realm of STEM toys, but Navir really stands out with its portfolio and product design. The company offers captivating shapes and colors, as well as handbooks, useful accessories, and preparations for observing nature and natural phenomena.
PLAYmake 4 in 1 workshop
PLAYmake 4 in 1 workshop is an Austrian product that offers a children’s workshop set. There are two types available: one for younger children for home use, and another for older children or schools, offering higher-quality finishing of the final products. PLAYmake is essentially a simple construction kit, allowing users to assemble a small, functional, and safe lathe, grinder, drill, or milling machine (or cutter).
ArTeC
ArTeC
ArTeC je opět japonská stavebnice. Tentokrát nejde o stavební konstrukce, nýbrž o malé plastové dílky, které na sebe skládáte. V sérii ArTeC Robo připojujete i elektronické komponenty a tím stavebnici můžete využít jako dílnu kybernetiky. Ze stavebnice si lze poskládat a naprogramovat například funkčního robota a dokoupit a připojit různé senzory, motorky a programovací díly.
CUBORO
CUBORO
Returning from electronics to natural materials, the traditional Swiss wooden building set CUBORO is a very simple marble track, or rather wooden blocks. Depending on the imagination and the number of available blocks with various grooves and holes, you can assemble a track to guide the marble to the desired destination. Assembling it develops creativity, dexterity, and logical thinking.
GraviTrax
GraviTrax
Another marble track, but this time innovative and interactive, is GraviTrax. It is a building set with many different pieces. It caught a lot of attention at the exhibition from a distance, even though it wasn’t the largest presentation. GraviTrax also offers many sets and pieces. It can be approached as a building set, but also as a competitive game or a system full of electronic and telecommunication technologies.
For more information, we recommend checking out the presentation directly on Ravensburger here.
CircuitMess
CircuitMess
CircuitMess is an electronics building kit for enthusiasts of electronics and cybernetics. It is a relatively new project founded by Albert from Croatia. CircuitMess offers various kits that teach you how to solder electronic circuits, program, think about their functions, and then use the final functional product. You can create items such as a mixing console, amplifier, calculator, digital games, communicator, robotic arm, and more.
Bildits
Bildits
Bildits is a project by engineers from Lebanon. The Bildits kit contains materials and tools for building a small model of a house or construction structure. The kit includes bricks, cement for casting monolithic structures (foundations and columns), brick adhesive, formwork, and wires representing a rebar mesh, concrete reinforcements. You can build according to your imagination or choose a version based on the instructions.
ARpedia
ARpedia
ARpedia is a South Korean interactive book. It is a regular book that you place on the table, and you can read from it and show children images of how the world was created, who the dinosaurs were, how to behave in nature, and so on. However, in front of the book, you have the option to place a tablet or mobile phone with the ARpedia app on a stand with a camera.
Once the app is activated, using augmented reality technology, you will see the same book on the tablet screen, but animated 3D characters will appear from it. These characters tell the story in which they are part. Children thus go through the pictures, flipping through the book together with virtual friends. The books contain many spoken words and interactive games. For example, children must figure out how to get apples from a tree that are very high – the solution is to call a friend giraffe, who collects the apples.
ARpedia offers three series of books: Curiosity Q with general information and stories about the world, Community, stories from life, interesting places or activities, and AR Science Lab – for example, a chemistry lab in augmented reality.
It is a very interesting product, but unfortunately it is not available in Czech, and for spoken words, it is probably only recommended for English-speaking children.
Modern Technology, Metaverse, NFT (Mattel NFT)
As ARpedia suggests, the world of entertainment and toys is slowly but surely moving into virtual reality. ARpedia is augmented reality, which is nothing new, but the modern era is increasingly dominated by terms like the metaverse – a virtual world. In the commercial virtual world, the metaverse, technologies such as blockchain are used for the clear identification of various virtual worlds, lands, or objects via NFTs (non-fungible tokens) based on blockchain. The industry is also investing in the development of technologies based on similar principles, as we mentioned in the article Internet of Things IIoT, Digital Twin, Industrial Metaverse (kint.cz).
Our expectation was to find similar technologies in the children’s space, meaning that children should be able to correctly recognize what is and isn’t virtual, what is and isn’t safe. Just like the metaverse world or NFTs. At the Spielwarenmesse 2023 trade fair, there was a dedicated section for technological innovations, including companies offering the creation of virtual worlds, with the logo of Mattel behind them, which is already selling collectible NFTs such as HotWheels or Barbie. More about Mattel’s NFT technology and purchasing here.
In connection with Mattel NFTs and the metaverse, we got the impression that there is already preparation or a possibility to use purchased NFTs in virtual reality, just like in other commercial NFTs. We can imagine, for example, that by purchasing an NFT, a physical object would be linked to its virtual counterpart to simulate the Digital Twin technology.
Unfortunately, we were unable to arrange a meeting with a Mattel representative at the last minute regarding this topic. After a brief search online, we concluded that it is probably still early for such use, and that we can expect such innovations in the near future. We have something to look forward to 🙂
In conclusion
We left Spielwarenmesse 2023 full of impressions, with many new pieces of information, experiences, and contacts. If you like the products presented in this article, feel free to follow and like us on all possible social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube).
