Field Trip!
It’s not often that I get to go on field trips anymore. All through college I’ve been jealous of my brothers’ Earth Science field trips to places like Hawaii. Well, it’s no Hawaii, but for the Toy Product Design class that I’m helping to teach, we did get to go to the second largest toy company in the world:
During our tour, the class got to learn all about their design, engineering and marketing processes directly from the toy designers themselves. We got to see the insides of nerf blasters (they can’t call them guns) that shoots 3.5 darts per second, and the prototypes of Butterscotch the animatronic pony. I think the coolest thing I learned was where they get some of their ideas for manufacturing. For example, the cutting edge of plastics and foam forming is in the shoe industry. Apparently, Hasbro and other toy manufacturers often get their inspiration from shoe designs. I don’t know that I would’ve guessed at that connection, but in retrospect it makes lots of sense.
The description wouldn’t be complete without mentioning “Memory Lane,” a showcase of the Hasbro toys from past and present, complete with original Lincoln Logs sets and a sterling silver My Little Pony. But, the coolest part, I thought, was the life size Monopoly car, filled with Monopoloy money…can I get one of those?
