roominate
hook up a roominate set to rpower and then control your circuits from the free roominate app. works with all existing roominate sets !
while designing roominate, we have made sure that roominate meets and exceeds all toy safety standards through extensive safety testing. roominate complies to the following safety standards :
get your rpower first! hook up a roominate set to rpower and then control your circuits from the free roominate app. works with all existing roominate sets !
roominate is a toy product designed to foster young girl' s interest in stem. roominate is a private company. roominate has a revenue of $ 10m, and 10 employees. roominate has raised a total of $ 1m in funding. roominate' s top competitor is leapfrog enterprises, led by john barbour, who is their ceo. roominate has 15 followers on owler .
owler has collected 12 screenshots of roominate' s website since jun 2014. the latest roominate website design screenshot was captured in oct 2017 .
since roominate was founded in 12 / 2011, it has participated in 1 round of funding. in total roominate has raised $ 1. 0m. roominate' s funding round was on sep 2015 for a total of $ 1. 0m
roominate' s dollhouse kits include motors, lights, battery packs, and switches .
roominate - so honored for the feature today by a mighty... | facebook
the roominate team is working to have less and less parts make more and more things .
i wondered if this was just because it was the most basic kit. but looking at the roominate website, even the $ 225 chateau de roominate only comes with the fan .
magformers is seen as one of roominate' s top competitors. magformers was founded in 2000, and its headquarters is in plymouth, michigan. magformers has 74 more employees than roominate .
roominate 2. 0: new smart toys to inspire girls in stem by maykah inc. —kickstarter
roominate, a santa clara, ca - based creator of a... ...
after mark and lori’s investment of $ 500, 000, roominate has grown in multiple exciting directions. from an early goal of teaching children about engineering and circuitry, now, thanks to mark cuban’s expertise, roominate has expanded its teaching tools to include teaching kids about programming. the new “rpower” is a new product from roominate that acts as a small hub that connects all the circuits and lights from your roominate set, and allows kids to control them by creating a program on the roominate app !
roominate is a toy product designed to foster young girl' s interest in stem. roominate was founded in 12 / 2011. it has raised 1. 0m in 1 round. the latest round was in sep 2015. some of roominate' s investors include id ventures america and tandem capita ...
be a roominate superstar with this incredible set! includes rpower, the new circuits system, a full set of roominate characters, and everything else a superstar needs! over 350 pieces are included in this set .
alice brooks and bettina chen have sold their santa clara - based building toy startup roominate to patch products .
when alice brooks and bettina chen initially founded roominate in san francisco, they implemented a d ...
leapfrog enterprises is roominate' s # 1 rival. leapfrog enterprises was founded in 1995 in emeryville, california. leapfrog enterprises is in the schools field. leapfrog enterprises generates $ 322. 4m more revenue than roominate .
roominate is the diy wired dollhouse building kit that gets girls excited about stem. through hands - on building and circuits, roominate brings together creativity, engineering, and most importantly, fun! roominate is designed by alice and bettina, two female engineers from caltech, mit, and stanford with a mission to inspire the next generation of female technology innovators .
kids build and play with their roominate creations for hours at a time. while playing, they are developing important skills :
roominate, a california - based toy company known for its line of customizable, stem inspired, wired b ...
stem toy and girls' construction set start - up roominate has launched a new rpower app. the app allows ...
roominate, an award - winning line of wired building systems for girls aged six and up, just launched a ...
roominate co - founder alice brooks has been named in forbes' annual 30 under 30 list, becoming the onl ...
roominate has employees and is the ninth highest among it' s top 10 competitors. the top 10 competitors average 1, 322 .
stem toy and girls' construction set start - up, roominate, has raised over $ 1million in funding in ord ...
designing a personalized studio is simple with the roominate studio. roominate empowers girls through hands - on, open - ended play. kids develop important stem skills during play: hands - on problem solving, spatial and fine motor skills, self - confidence, and creativity .
roominate has two solid investors on board as well as an innovative idea. do you think it is enough to withstand the long haul ?
roominate' s revenue is the fourth highest among it' s top 10 competitors. the top 10 competitors average $ 466. 4m .
we listened to your feedback, and we' ve been working hard behind the scenes to take the technology behind roominate to the next level .
fisher - price is one of roominate' s top competitors. fisher - price is headquartered in east aurora, new york, and was founded in 1930. fisher - price competes in the movies & entertainment field. fisher - price generates 18, 881% the revenue of roominate .
when alice brooks, co - founder of us toy brand, roominate asked for a barbie as a child, her father ha ...
snap the battery to a wire piece to a light! roominate furniture building pieces snap right in so that you can use the circuit pieces structurally .
santa clara, calif. - - (business wire) - - roominate, an award - winning line of wired building systems for ...
santa clara, calif. - - (business wire) - - roominate, a california - based toy company known for its line o ...
palo alto, calif. - - (business wire) - - roominate, an award - winning line of wired building systems for g ...
roominate offers nine products that contain different quantities and combinations of the modular building pieces and circuitry. [ 6 ] tekla perry, in an article for the institute of electrical and electronics engineers, described roominate as a
stem
( science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) toy company. [ 7 ]
get a full set of the new circuits system to complete your roominate collection! includes wire pieces and a brand new motor, led, and battery pack .
everything in circuit builder and more! plug the new circuits into rpower or the battery pack and use the cable converters for circuits from your existing roominate sets .
roominate is perfect for introducing programming, circuits, mechanical engineering concepts, and more into the classroom! over 1, 000 pieces are included in this set .
from the impressive beginnings of $ 1. 7 million dollars in sales by 2014, the company has exploded in growth with a whopping $ 4. 5 million in total sales today. and for roominate, that is just the beginning, that impressive sales number does not include the lucrative contract they just entered, which will have roominate sold in 800 walmart stores, as well as on walmart. com. roominate expects the walmart deal alone to net them additional millions in sales .
i first met alice brooks of roominate at stanford’s startx demo day. her dollhouse kit had wooden parts that connected together to form floors, walls, and furniture, and a battery pack and wires for a circuit to control a light, fan, or buzzer. since then, roominate has switched to making the pieces out of a durable and slightly flexible plastic that allows them to be pushed together and pulled apart countless times. and roominate has added more capabilities to its starter sets. it turns out, brooks says, that every kid wanted to build a couch, and roominate had left couches out of the first round. roominate is also including led lighting in its basic ($ 30) sets now, and has beefed up its instruction book with more ideas of things to build with the kits' parts and motors .
our goal is to expand girls’ possibilities from a young age so that they realize they can do and be anything. as it turns out, boys love roominate too !
creating toys designed to appeal to girls isn' t without its pitfalls. consider the troubling questions of girlie stereotypes surrounding lego friends. instead of dumbing down, roominate is smartening up .
roominate takes a toy concept that girls already love, and adds a design and engineering component that makes them love it even more ,
says kessler .
roominate got an investment from lori grenier and mark cuban, who together put in $ 500, 000 for a 5 percent equity stake — a healthy $ 10 million valuation. at the time of their shark tank appearance, roominate had $ 1. 7 million in sales and had run a successful kickstarter campaign, as the inquisitr previously reported .
speed up and change directions on your fan from your phone! roominate' s new pieces carry wiring through the plastic so you simply snap them together to build a circuit .
shark tank fans will get an update friday on one of the show’s most memorable entrepreneur pairs: alice brooks and bettina chen of “roominate. ” brooks and chen were part of the season 6 premiere in the fall of 2014, pitching their line of construction kits with working circuits. both women have graduate degrees in engineering, and they created roominate to nourish young girls’ interest in science .
the duo entrepreneurs, alice brooks and bettina chen, have also upgraded their workspace since shark tank. the team now has their own roominate headquarters in the great state of wisconsin, along with 8 new employees. now, after winning time magazine’s toy of the year award, and with two dedicated sharks on their side, roominate is on track to achieve its goal of inspiring children across the world .
roominate appeared on the season 6 premiere episode of shark tank, where they received a us $ 500, 000 investment from mark cuban and lori greiner for a 5% equity share. [ 5 ]
the deluxe roominate contains everything your daughter needs to build her own miniature room. with twice as many building pieces and circuits as the basic roominate, she can build and wire up even more furniture and contraptions for her creation! build more bunk beds, longer water slides, and bigger staircases, or wire up a working elevator and lamp with the motor and light circuits. the wall and floor panels can even be configured to build two - level structures, balconies, or backyards. the possibilities are endless! see more ideas on the roominate website, along with pictures of what other girls have made !
hold an incredible playdate that’s both fun and educational! send every kid home with a roominate t - shirt, tote bag, and notebook. with over 2, 000 pieces, the possibilities are truly endless .
i really wish the people at roominate well. i hope that they can think about this more and get back to the core promise that they initially showed. lots of people are counting on efforts like this succeeding .
plug in two circuits into one battery pack, or even more into rpower! all rpower reward levels come with two converter cables. use the cables to plug in any motors or lights from any existing roominate set .
the wires are built right into the plastic pieces. snap them together easily to create working circuits. then, attach furniture building pieces to build out your creation. the new wire pieces integrate seamlessly into the roominate system .
roominate was founded in 2012 by the stanford engineering grads and developed an award - winning line of building sets aimed at girls. both brooks and chen have been honored as women of influence by the silicon valley business journal .
deluxe roominate is just that - deluxe! create and design your own dollhouse, then, wire it however you choose! add real energy with light, an elevator that works, machines that move. kids engineer greatness !
we decided to do this because it is going to give our brand a chance to grow ,
brooks told me .
“patch’s entrepreneurial spirit and innovative culture is exactly what we were looking for to help grow roominate .
like many startups these days, maykah launched a kickstarter to fund the roominate project. they hoped for $ 25, 000 and got $ 85, 965. in silicon valley, still largely dominated by men, support is widespread .
“shark tank” season 6 kicked off with even more innovative ideas than ever before, but there was one clear winner of the night. roominate — a line of toys for little girls that encourage them to build and design was by far the favorite .
roominate' s toys have also collected honors, including being named one of “top 10 toys to watch in 2015” by forbes, “toy of the year” by time and as a finalist for
toy of the year
from the toy industry association .
chen and brooks both cited their experience as one of the few females in advanced science programs as reasons to create roominate. as chen told business insider this past june, the women both had exposure to similar products as children and that led them into science education programs .
designed by engineers alice brooks and bettina chen, roominate takes girl toys to the next level. the women who met in the master’s engineering program at stanford have created a line of engineering kits which one can build things like water slides and houses with working lamps and elevators .
the top 10 competitors in roominate' s competitive set are leapfrog enterprises, fisher - price, magformers, mindware, hasbro, jakks, mattel, fat brain toys, lego and hearthsong. together they have raised over 117. 0m between their estimated 53. 5k employees .
we started roominate 3 years ago, when we were both finishing masters degrees in engineering at stanford. before that, bettina studied electrical engineering at caltech and alice studied mechanical engineering at mit. shocked by the low number of women in engineering around us, we set out to figure out why .
the pitch went well at first, roominate had some impressive numbers, entering the shark tank with over $ 1. 7 million dollars in sales, in little more than a year and a half. and to add to those impressive stats, roominate was set to be in 596 toys - r - us stores and 1, 500 radioshacks by the following year. mr. wonderful, kevin o’leary, was truly impressed with entrepreneurs ability to get mass distribution so quickly, a task that is often insurmountable for young inventors. that said, he was weary of the reality that all of their claims of distribution were for the future, and at present, their sales were online focused. in his words “i’m being asked to pay for success before i know with certainty i have it. ” the roominate team quickly defended their numbers, responding that they have a clear track record of success, with sales more than tripling each year .
what happened? here is what i conjecture. it is very hard to start a new business; particularly one that manufactures toys. i think the folks at roominate just haven' t worked out how to provide more electronics with their kits. they made the judgment to move ahead regardless to make a christmas deadline .
jenn choi of forbes stated that the set' s design
naturally invites other materials to enhance the play experience
, which gave roominate
even more play value
. [ 8 ] in a review of the product, joshua gans, also of forbes, wrote that
it isn' t likely to impress parents or kids
, but afterwards wrote that the ability to use the motor for different purposes
[ relieved ] some of [ his family' s ] initial disappointment
. [ 9 ] jennifer alsever of inc. magazine included roominate on a list of toys for
next - generation inventors
. [ 10 ]
it was the pressure to succeed during their graduate studies that helped them, not only in engineering, but in business. the women learned how to handle failure, which is part of starting a company, according to chen. they worked past the early failed prototypes before creating a roominate that worked and kids seemed to like .
since its shark tank appearance, roominate has expanded its product offerings. forbes named its rpower line one of the “top ten toys to watch in 2015. ” the rpower kits permit users to hook up their creations to an android or ios system, so they not only have working circuits, but may be remote - controlled .
shark tank fans will get further updates on the roominate crew and how its partnership with cuban and grenier has panned out. shark tank airs friday night at 9 p. m. on abc. beyond the tank, the show’s companion program that provides in - depth updates on entrepreneurs, is also due to return for a limited run this fall .
on shark tank, the women made an impression — not least on mark cuban, who agreed to invest with a condition: that his young daughters be able to watch them work. upstart business journal reported in december 2014 that the women had exchanged emails with the young cubans, along with images of what the girls had made with the roominate kits .
tooling: since getting started, we have gone through the mold making process multiple times. all of the plastic roominate parts are made by injection molding. every time we add new parts to the roominate system, we need to make new molds to produce them. when first shots come back from our mold makers, we’ll give them feedback on the fit between pieces. they’ll do revisions to the mold until the fit is perfect. our mold makers have experience making our products and are very familiar with our tolerance and fit requirements. it is likely that they’ll get the parts pretty close at first shots and only have to do minor revisions. we' ve still built in plenty of time in case extra revisions are necessary .
we spent the next few months researching girls, talking to parents and teachers, and testing out new ideas for toys that could get more girls building and playing with circuits. after a whole lot of cardboard prototypes and testing with hundreds of girls, we came up with the original idea for roominate: a dollhouse that girls would construct and then wire up with working circuits .
the three decided they wanted to do something about it .
we realized that our own childhood experiences were integral in attracting us to math and science as adults ,
says chen. so they created roominate, a doll house construction kit – aimed at girls 6 to 10 years old – that mixes customization, diy assembly, and electronics. it' s our new kickstarter of the week .
roominate is an award - winning line of wired building systems designed to inspire girls in stem (science, technology, engineering, and math). kids can build, wire, and design the world they want to play in, and everyone makes something unique. from a light up golden gate bridge, to a bunny elevator, to a car wash with spinning brushes, anything is possible !
each roominate room kit is made up of laser - cut wooden parts for walls and furniture, some electronics parts to bring it to life, and decoration bits to enable interior design. the rooms are stackable and the parts are modular, allowing greater and greater customization, the more you have. the idea is that as kids play with the sets they' ll act as an entry point to more interest in stem skills .
[ update: the folks from roominate have been in touch and have explained a little more as to what occurred here. they focussed on the motor because the children found that the most interesting. out of the box, the instructions were to build a fan. due to parental lack of imagination on our part, we didn' t think about what other uses that motor might be put too. the roominate website contains a growing list of ideas including a washing machine, fireplace and elevator. that certainly expands the mind somewhat and relieves some of our initial disappointment. i only wish that the had included these ideas in the box so that the children could have worked through the projects at the time. again, it just goes to show how difficult it is establishing a new toy concept especially when creativity is involved. sometimes, we just don' t see it. ]
having already hit its kickstarter goal, the team is now thinking about future improvements. the current version of roominate uses off - the - shelf parts, but the team is working on designing circuits that will require an order of custom parts .
we really wanted to make it possible for our electronics to be joined in parallel and in series ,
says brooks ,
however, there was no obvious solution that could come from off - the - shelf components .
“when we looked around at girls’ toys today, we did not see the kinds of toys that inspired us when we were young, ” wrote alice brooks, bettina chen and jennifer kessler wrote at women 2. 0. so the three of them, all graduate students at stanford, formed a company they call “maykah. ” their first toy, roominate, updates the game of playing house: with circuits and custom - built parts, girls won’t just keep house but learn about what goes into building one .
roominate is a clever and unique construction set that blends the skills of building, creativity storytelling, and even circuitry into a toy that gets kids excited about learning. after its founders met in the master’s degree program of stanford university, one of the world’s most prestigious institutions for research and education, they learned that less than 15% of women enter college intending to major in a stem (science, technology, engineering, or math) field. it was then that they agreed to make it their mission to inspire the next generation of inventors .
two of my favorite new stem toy companies of the past couple of years have been going through that process: light up, which i wrote about last spring, and roominate, which i wrote about in 2012. i saw them both recently at makercon, and light up showed up again at a stanford showcase. (a stem toy, by my definition, is a toy designed to be an easy entry point to science or engineering for kids who may never have tried either .) both have changed quite a bit since i first saw them .
the two realized their love for engineering was influenced by the toys they played with as kids, toys that built confidence with hands - on problem solving and creativity. alice had her own saw as an eight - year - old, and bettina played with her brother' s hand - me - down lego and lincoln logs. they set out to make these same experiences that inspired them accessible to all girls today. with roominate, they’re giving little girls the opportunity to engineer and create on their own. they’re inspiring the next generation of female technology innovators .
back in may i wrote about a kickstarter project that promised to address issues of gender differences in toys. called roominate, there would be a kit that not only included materials to build a doll house but electronics to wire it as well. the kickstarter video pointed to a house that was interestingly decorated but that had all manner of lighting and a fan installed with switches to make it all work. this looked like an extremely sensible way of broadening the play experience, particularly of girls, but maybe for all children. i promptly backed the project and waited for the kit to arrive .
to me that was the wrong call. what is distinctive about roominate is the electronics and it had to be about that. at the moment, it is way over - priced for what it delivers on. and moreover, it isn' t likely to impress parents or kids. my daughter who is far more savage on toy design than i can ever be lamented to me .
look this is just a bunch of stickers. and then you have these instructions to fold a dog. what is this huge paper dog doing in my house ?
i guess it may be something to be blown away by the fan but the fan didn' t have enough power. a lesson there for everyone .
bought this for an 8 year old girl. i wasn' t sure if she would like it since she typically likes her dolls best. but we looked at some videos and pics on the website and became very interested. she built her first big project today... making amusement park swings. i just wish it included more than 1 motor and light. she has no interest in the stickers at this point... she just wants more pieces to be able to build more! i highly recommend it for anyone looking for a different kind of toy for a young g irl! although, i do think some boys would like this too! they probably would not build
doll houses
but forts and contraptions! the walls are all white and you tape paper to them to give it color so the possibilities are endless! finally, i wish amazon carried the expansion packs that are available on the roominate website !
mark cuban, who in order to prove the versatility of roominate, was built a basketball court with complimentary airplane as a sample, was impressed with the success of the two female inventors. the ingenuity and dedication of the women brought out the family man that accompanied mark’s own success. with a net worth of over $ 3 billion dollars, mark expressed concerns that his two daughters may acquire a sense of entitlement, instead of the strong work ethic he developed. so, he made the entrepreneurs their first offer, the full $ 500, 000 for 5% of the business, but with one contingency, his daughters had to be a part of the project and have the opportunity to lean on alice and bettina as mentors. lori greiner took the opportunity to jump into the deal as well. known to her other successful entrepreneurs as the chickstarter, she was excited to join another project with passionate women set out to inspire and innovate .
the two women entered the shark tank seeking an investment of $ 500, 000 for a 5% interest in their company. they began with a simple argument on the influence that toys can have on what type of person everyone grow ups to be. that favorite toy that you loved as child, was it playing with a fire truck, or picking out clothes for a doll; what effect did that have on you, and what effect is it having on our children? what was even more compelling was the roominate argument: what if that board game, was an actual construction set that let you actually build those hotels, what if those crayons you used to draw pictures was actually a toy that let you design your own prototype? for alice, co - owner of the business, her turning point came when she asked her father if santa claus would be bringing her a new barbie for christmas, a few weeks later she opened her shiny new saw! her father’s words, “build the dream house yourself. ” ever since, she was passionate about engineering .
brooks, and jennifer kessler all studied math and science in school. but year after year, they noticed a problem .
as we got to higher levels of study, the number of women in our classes continued to decrease ,
says books. she' s not wrong. the numbers of women pursuing careers in stem fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are
every young girl is an artist, engineer, architect & visionary .
we can get behind that .
as much as the project is intended to be a learning tool for children, its development has been an ongoing learning process for its creators. the toy was prototyped while the founders were participating in startx, the stanford student startup accelerator. they' ve approached the problem methodically, iterating through countless designs and getting prototypes into the hands of children to see how they use them .
a lot of work and tradeoffs go into making toys for young kids. you want the toys to be safe, easy to use, and idiot - proof while at the same time, the whole point it to encourage experimentation and unexpected results. early testing revealed how big a challenge this would become .
we had not realized how rough the kids would be with our product ,
brooks says. the team had to rethink how to build components that could stand up to the punishment of daily play .
the electronics needed particular attention. the final design uses single molex connectors, which insulate both the wires and the connections ,
completely protecting little fingers from touching any actual wires ,
says chen. they similarly designed their circuits to make shorting the battery impossible .
the walls and furniture were also carefully deliberated. they are working on minimizing the number of different shapes needed to create the furniture and walls. the fewer types of parts needed in a kit, the more modular it will be, allowing kids more options for customization .
it is important to us that the design is as modular and flexible as possible ,
says kessler .
their other wishlist item is a laser cutter of their very own. with that, kesseler says, they could bypass their biggest expense – paying to cut the wood on a per - hour basis .
since we are committed to delivering our kits to our kickstarter supporters at cost ,
she says ,
having our own laser would allow for more pieces per kit (and more possibilities) .
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one of the cool things about living in silicon valley is getting to watch companies grow up. we see the words on temporary tenant boards outside tiny offices in downtown palo alto become household names and move into ever more stunning corporate campuses. (we forget the ones that disappear, of course .) and as products evolve from rough prototypes, we see founders grow and change with them. it’s always nice when we see products and founders that captured our imagination go through the process of maturing and getting out into the world .
the latest change: dolls. because after all, what’s a dollhouse, even one with a working doorbell and turning fans, without dolls to live in it .
is the company booming? not yet (and they’re not talking specifically about sales) but their products are in some key catalogs like fatbrain .
ieee spectrum’s blog featuring the people, places, and passions of the world of technologists in silicon valley and its environs .
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sounds pretty cool, right? mark cuban thought so too and he wasn’t alone .
the women asked the investors for an investment of $ 500, 000 and offered 5% equity for it. cuban offered $ 500, 000 for 5% if his daughters can be a part of it. lori greiner offered to split with mark, and have the product on qvc within four months. while the other investors passed on the product .
four startups are shaking up the toy industry with products designed to teach concepts such as coding, robotics, and engineering .
forget barbie dolls and hot wheels. today' s hot new toys are teaching kids how to innovate. armed with new research linking childhood play and technical aptitude, entrepreneurs are shaking up the $ 22 billion toy industry .
parents, eager to give their children an early advantage, are clamoring for toys that teach concepts such as coding, robotics, and engineering .
it' s the geek - chic trend ,
says adrienne appell, spokeswoman for the toy industry association .
it' s cool to code, and parents see the potential .
but for a new toy to take off, it must be more than just educational. it has to be fun .
how early can a child learn to code? turns out, kids as young as 5 can grasp basic programming concepts, according to new research. that' s what inspired former google manager vikas gupta to start play - i. his mountain view - based company makes blue toy robots that can be programmed using a simple ipad app to roam around, pick up objects, and tell stories. gupta, who has two young children, believes that programming skills will be essential to kids in the future, regardless of their jobs. to get kids engaged, he gave the robots personalities and names: bo ($ 169) and yana ($ 59). after raising $ 1. 4 million on kickstarter - - well above play - i' s $ 250, 000 goal - - the company received another $ 8 million in venture capital in march. play - i, which has 15 employees, plans to start shipping the toy robots this fall .
programmer dan shapiro hated playing board games like candy land, but he wanted a way to spend quality time with his preschool - aged twins. so while on leave from google last year, shapiro made up his own board game, called robot turtles, that uses turtles, mazes, and tokens to
sneakily
teach kids programming skills - - without using a computer. shapiro raised more than $ 630, 000 from backers on kickstarter last september and quickly sold out of the $ 25 game. shapiro did not intend to start a board - game company, so he licensed the game to toymaker thinkfun to boost production. robot turtles will be in retail stores this summer .
eight years ago, mit graduate student ayah bdeir set out to build a toy that did for electronics what legos did for construction. the result? littlebits, construction kits that contain tiny circuit boards, motors, sensors, and lights that kids can use to create their own motorized toys. no wiring is required: all of the pieces snap together with magnets. since littlebits launched in 2011, the new york city - based company has raised more than $ 15 million in funding. more than 1, 800 schools use its $ 100 kits in classrooms. bdeir says the kits help kids understand how an elevator door or night - light works - - and they' re making their own creations, such as racecars and robots .
it' s much more than a toy ,
bdeir says .
it' s an invention tool .
and arrive it did just last week. the first thing you' ll notice is the packaging. here is a picture .
it is very gender neutral. it could so easily have been all flowers and pinks but instead it shows the toy; specifically, it does not show a kid with a specific gender. kudos for that .
my kids couldn' t wait to play with it. all of them, girl (8), girl (13) and boy (11) fought for the rights but first dibs went to the 8 year old. what i was expecting was a kit with plastic materials for walls and furniture, a few decorative items and a lot of electronics. well, we got the plastic but not the electronics. there was one item; essentially, a motor for a fan, and connectors to a switch and battery pack. that was it. no lights. no options for how to integrate electronics in the doll house. just a fan .
now according to a tweet, the fan was there because it was the electronic item that excited girls the most. sadly, that wasn' t the case for my daughter. she wanted to put more into it than that. it certainly didn' t excite me enough .
what the kit did come with was an abundance of decorative items. there were tons of stickers but these were all of the flowers, butterflies and dolphin variety. in the end, the kit was just like a traditional doll house craft project with a single fan and a $ 60 bill .
our playmonster friends from automoblox and marbleocity are rolling at the us science & engineering festival in washington dc this weekend. if you’re in the area, they’d love to see you .
the duo of alice brooks and bettina chen appeared on shark tank on september 26, 2014, to inspire the sharks to see the opportunity in revolutionizing the construction set industry by focusing on engineering and circuitry, as well as the education of young girls .
chris went to school at the university of maryland, and while rooting for the terps, he began his career of freelance writing. now a college grad and a passionate teacher, he enjoys taking the time to write articles and research the next big thing .
a teen actor, finn wolfhard is best known for playing the character of mike wheeler in the popular sci - fi series, stranger things. his most ...
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now you can design, program, and control your world. every girl is an artist, engineer, architect, and visionary !
kids can build, wire, and design anything they imagine... then play for hours !
you can make motors spin faster and slower, reverse direction, turn lights on and off, and set lights to blink .
we started talking about why we chose engineering and realized we shared something in common: toys inspired both of us! we loved engineering before we even knew what the word meant. for alice, it was her own saw, and for bettina, it was building elaborate lego creations with her brother .
we put our idea on kickstarter in may 2012, and the response was overwhelming. we set up manufacturing and shipped out rewards in december 2012 .
thank you so much to everyone who backed our original project, shared it with friends, and cheered us on. we would not be where we are today without you! we are so grateful for your support .
with your help getting launched, we' ve spent the past 3 years building our company and continuing to improve our products for you .
we' ve already started tooling for rpower. we hope to get your support on kickstarter so that we can launch tooling for our new circuits system earlier than otherwise possible .
manufacturing a physical product comes with a lot of potential risks and delays. we’ve gained 3 years of experience since our first kickstarter campaign. we delivered on our first campaign within our target of 6 months and have gained really valuable experience manufacturing at scale since then. we’ve built buffer into every step of the process to account for the risks that we’ve identified .
freight: there is always a chance of port delays or additional customs screening time, both of which are beyond our control. we’ve had both happen to our shipments in the past, so we’ve built extra time into our delivery schedule in case either or both happen .
delivering rewards: our fulfillment center has been in operation since 1989 and has extensive experience in working with both startups and well - established companies. for the past two years, they have handled all of our online orders from individual customers, as well as larger shipments from our retailers. they have also worked with many other companies to ship kickstarter rewards .
two classroom sets make the ultimate classroom! over 2, 500 pieces are included in this set .
please sign in and use this article' s on page print button to print this article .
no financial details of the sale were disclosed and the stanford grads plan to join the wisconsin company but remain based in silicon valley. it had raised about $ 3 million and employed less than 10 .
brooks and chen hit the national spotlight after appearing on
shark tank
in the fall of 2014, winning investments from investors mark cuban and lori greiner .
that came after the company raised its first round of funding through a kickstarter campaign in may 2012, raising nearly $ 86, 000, easily surpassing its $ 25, 000 goal .
“we are excited and honored to take on a concept that gets girls excited about engineering through play, ” patch products ceo bob wann said in a press release about the deal .
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electrode, comp - 185576016, dc - prod - dal1, env - prod - a, prof - prod, ver - 7. 5. 0, sha - b16318c7d1d0d398de738a55c15a2143b115ef36, cid -
science toys for girls are often, well, terrible. while boys get cool explosions and slime, girls get “beauty spa lab” and “perfect perfume lab. ” and everything is always, as a rule, pink. but a team of female engineers are trying to buck that trend. they’re developing toys for girls that will actually inspire young women to go into math and science .
parents could start ordering toys last week, although the final price hasn’t been set yet. the maykah team hopes that their toys will help put a dent in the highly skewed gender ratio found in the engineering world, where only about 25 percent of the tech - force is female .
rose eveleth is a writer for smart news and a producer / designer / science writer / animator based in brooklyn. her work has appeared in the new york times, scientific american, story collider, ted - ed and onearth .
whale milk is some of the richest milk available to any mammal. a baby whale will drink 150 gallons of it a day to sustain its dramatic growth .
for six weeks, luna moth caterpillars gorge themselves on the leaves of the marula tree. then, when they' re ready, they instinctively weave giant cocoons around themselves in preparation for their stunning metamorphosis .
the superheros creator, william moulton marston, was a harvard - trained psychologist and inventor and infused his daily life into the comic book .
in 1992, christopher mccandless set off to test if he could survive alone in the wilds of alaska. it didn' t go as planned .
da vinci' s the last supper plays a key role in the 2006 blockbuster hit the da vinci code. although the film' s claims are more fiction than fact, could the painting actually contain a message from leonardo ?
what' s the difference between england, britain and the u. k. ?
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chen told madison reed that the toy fills a need. parents are often forced to choose toys from the “girls” aisle or the “boys” aisle, which can limit what exposure both genders receive. that’s significant since play is part of children’s early learning experiences .
“parents feel obligated to shop by those [ gender ] categories. give your kids the opportunity to explore different paths and find the one they’re really interested in. ”
chen’s comments were published in madison reed several months before one massive retail chain, target, announced it was eliminating gender segregation in its toy aisles. as media studies professor rebecca hains wrote in the washington post in august 2015, “gender - based marketing” became widespread in the 1990s as a way for businesses to sell twice as much stuff to parents .
“for both of us, we found that it was really toys we played with when we were younger that really got us building and tinkering and making things with our hands — things that really drew us toward engineering in college. ”
“being in a rigorous learning environment taught us that not everything is going to happen exactly as you plan it, which is certainly the case with starting a new business. ”
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alice brooks and bettina chen, the founders of maykah, inc. , met in the master' s degree engineering program at stanford university. the two launched their first prototype on kickstarter and raised us $ 85, 000 from a us $ 25, 000 funding goal. [ 2 ] the team participated in startx, a business incubator for stanford entrepreneurs, in 2012, and partnered with edforward, the center for innovation in education at the uc davis school of education, to create a series of educational activity guides to accompany the kits. [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
roominate is a construction set introduced by maykah inc. , a company founded by alice brooks and bettina chen , in 2012 . the product , marketed at girls aged 6 – 10 , consists of modular plastic building pieces that can interlock to create models and includes circuits that can be wired . originally funded through kickstarter , the company received an investment from mark cuban and lori greiner during the sixth season of shark tank . 
roominate is a construction set introduced by maykah inc., a company founded by alice brooks and bettina chen, in 2012. the product, marketed at girls aged 6 – 10, consists of modular plastic building pieces that can interlock to create models and includes circuits that can be wired. originally funded through kickstarter, the company received an investment from mark cuban and lori greiner during the sixth season of shark tank.
roominate is a construction set introduced by maykah inc., a company founded by alice brooks and bettina chen, in 2012. the product, marketed at girls aged 6 – 10, consists of modular plastic building pieces that can interlock to create models and includes circuits that can be wired. originally funded through kickstarter, the company received an investment from mark cuban and lori greiner during the sixth season of shark tank.