STEM Toys For Kids That Parents Will Love: GoldieBlox Craft-Struction Box
This is the seventh post in my series STEM Toys for Kids that Parents Will Love. To check out the other posts, click on any of the images below.
My last post covered the same company, GoldieBlox. This time, instead of action figures, I'm showing you their "Craft-Struction Box."
As I mentioned last time, this company started as a Kickstarter project in 2012, and you may remember seeing their commercial during the Super Bowl in 2014. These people are marketing geniuses. "Disrupt the pink aisle," is their motto because they want to create a toy for girls who want to be builders, innovators, and engineers - not typically future careers marketed toward little girls.
This toy is honestly one of my favorite toys I've reviewed yet. I like it for a few reasons. First, I love the name and the color scheme. I think the fact that they put "craft" in the name of their kit is incredibly clever. It makes the idea of engineering new designs sound creative and fun. I don't think I'd get those feelings if it were simply called a Construction Kit, or something along those lines.
GoldieBlox commercial promoting their female action figures
To me, this tells me, "You're just building crafts! You do this all the time! See what you can do with these unique, colorful craft tools and supplies!"
And the color scheme isn't "in-your-face-princess-girly." It's simply bright and colorful. I like the fact that boys wouldn't be turned away from this based on the color scheme / box design.
The coolest part of the kit is the diversity of parts you're provided: springs, washers, axles, corner joints, angle joints, elbow joints, spacers, crank, wheel hub, tires and more. I was really impressed with the quality of the parts. They fit together incredibly well, which made it easy to build many different types of structures without them falling apart.
The kit also comes with stickers and "craftstruction" pieces, which are hard paper shapes that you can easily add to your designs. Many of these craftstruction pieces are flowers or stars, but it also comes with a wing-sturcture for you to make a glider. Pretty neat, GoldieBlox!
GoldieBlox stickers and craftstruction pieces
Another great aspect of this craft-struction box is that the designers include craft ideas for your child to build and pair them with basic engineering principles. Think compression (springs), aerodynamics (you can build a glider), mechanical motion, centripetal force, and center of mass.
I'm a huge fan of this Craft-struction kit. If you have a child (age 6+), this is a really unique toy that will get them excited to design and engineer their own little inventions. If they need a little help thinking of ideas, GoldieBlox made a series of YouTube videos to get them started that you kind find here.
Check out more toys from GoldieBlox below.
