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We wanted to make a toy that allowed children
to understand and begin to explore the importance of the power grid
and how neighborhoods are wired and connected to their power sources
and what happens if there's too much demand
or how can we put in new types of energy into their neighborhood?
We built a toy that
is easy to start with, that anybody who sits down in front of it will have some idea
of how to start.
There's a town and
there are buildings, and they're wired to produce electricity to connect a neighborhood.
We looked at a number of toys that were currently available on the market
ones that were aimed just at girls, one that were gender neutral, and ones that maybe
inspired more "boy play".
And we developed a set of criteria to evaluate these toys. We decided that
there needed to be a lot of pieces.
We decided that it needed to be easily accessible straight out of the box.
We decided that it needed to be gender-neutral, because an engineering
toy should inspire
all children, and it shouldn't inspire girls just at the exclusion of boys.
And we think that this toy does that.
We've created a toy that we think will cause boys and girls alike to question and explore, to ask questions
and to try to find the answers to those questions.
Our team at MSTE evaluated toys for a number of weeks, and we really feel that our toy
meets the criteria that we found were best for the toys that are already available.
There are lots of pieces, it's easily accessible out of the box, you can play
with it more than one time, and in fact, this toy grows with you.
And there's that thrill of the lights coming on, the things that
electrical engineers and power engineers spend their whole life doing.