'Specialty Toy Of The Year' From Vernon Hills Company Has Kids Losing Their Marbles
VERNON HILLS (CBS) -- They weren't just playing around when they came up with the toy of the year
CBS 2's Vince Gerasole traveled to Vernon Hills to meet with the creative minds behind a toy called Tumble Trax.
In this Toy Story, you just might lose your marbles, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for kids.
"They like to play with marbles, they like to play with magnets, they like to play with race sets, they like to make things go fast and we said let's put them all together. That's how we came up with Tumble Trax," says Tom Runtz, senior product development manager for Learning Resources.
The game starts with a series of magnetic platforms that stick wherever you want to put them on a white board to create a marble run.
"A child has to figure out if it makes it go too fast, how do I adjust the angle of one of these pieces to slow it down?" Runtz says. "If I put a piece too far away and it bounces off, I need to close the distance between those two pieces. It's about the child doing a lot of early critical thinking."
The game, developed by Learning Resources in Vernon Hills, was named Specialty Toy of the Year at the International North American Toy Fair for its use of STEM skills, like math and engineering.
"You have to take your adult brain, knock everything out of it and then re-imagine yourself as a child," Runtz says.
Surrounded by a mountain of toys, Runtz gave us an idea of what it's like being an adult developing toys for kids.
"You sit around with a talented group of people in our secret laboratory and we literally throw things against the wall in the case of Marble Run," Runtz says.
They also make a robot mouse that teaches coding.
"When you program the mouse, it will find the cheese," says CEO Rick Woldenberg.
Woldenberg says successful developers at learning resources known how to turn childhood imagination into something more.
"There's always been a bit of kid that I've never lost," Runtz says.
The imagineers at Learning Resources don't have just a childlike mind but also a dedication to learning.
On the horizon at Learning Resources: Jumbo dinosaurs.
If you are interest in Tumble Trax, it sells for $25.
