ColourLucent Educational Toy
ColourLucent is a collaboration/co-creation project focused on creating educational solutions for children aged 4 to 6, inspired by the essential principles of photography: light and colour theory. The educational goal is to teach the child the basics of colour theory by juxtaposing the pieces one on top of the other to create new colours. The white and black pieces act as indicators of shutter speed and aperture.
IN COLLABORATON WITH
Jeremy Calhoun
SERVICES
Educational, Toy Design
YEAR
2011
Design Features
The toy’s intricate design and symmetrical qualities encourage interaction and play. Made of birch plywood, the octagonal base holds three layers of eight identical hollow pieces. Each piece hosts a different translucent coloured urethane resin – red, green, blue, yellow, orange, magenta, white and black. The light inside the base is diffused by a sheet of opaque plexiglass.
Prototyping & Final Product
With the help of a template produced with a CNC machine, we created a router jig in order to produce symmetrical, identical wood pieces. The coloured urethane resin inserts were cast and coloured individually by hue. The circuitry for the light box was then soldered and added during final assembly.
