About
The life of a toy has become very short. While former generations held on to their bears, cars and spintops for a lifetime, toys today often hardly survive a season; they become abandoned as children get bored, distracted or parts easily breaking to pieces. As many other consumer products today, toys have a very short life span with undesirable effects on the natural environment.
Metabolic Toys DAY 1
Introductions to the metabolic and Cradle to Cradle concept, featuring the movie of Story of Stuff.
Students presented their favourite toys, then forming teams of three or four people, inventing a group name and logo.
Mapping the life cycles of some of these toys:
* where did original material of the toy come from?
* where was it designed?
* where was it manufactured?
* by who?
* where was it packaged?
* what is the packaging material?
* how was it distributed (means of transport)?
* where are distributors?
* where was your toy bought? how did it get to you?
* what have you experienced with it?
* what will happen/ happened with it?
* ….
Each group created a blog to document their research.
Metabolic Toys DAY 2
Each group presents their findings of toys’s life cycles.
Brainstorming in class:
* What kind of toys and play forms can you think of?
* Mapping age groups (children, teenagers, adults). What are their particular behaviours/ attitudes/ characteristics?
* Each group creates a persona: a person as child and then either as teenager or adult: what is his/ her character? what does he/ she like? how does he/ she develop? what is special about him/ her? what is his/ her name? what does he/ she look like?
Designing metabolic toys for the respective persona in teams.
Featuring Spin Tops movie by Ray and Charles Eames.
Metabolic Toys DAY 3
Developing Metabolic Toys ideas and excursion to Material ConneXion Milan, seeing and touching Cradle to Cradle materials.
Metabolic Toys DAY 4
Building and finalising Metabolic Toys, preparing the presentation.
Metabolic Toys DAY 5
Big exhibition, presentations and play!
