MONTAGE BOTS

With two clicks, combine any modular personality piece into a bot helper for never ending inventing on Goldieblox mechanical montage playsets.

01 ► Refresh Your "Senses"

With my love of film, I have always been curious if there was a play experience where movie montage, the technique of compositing short shots into a sequence, can come alive in mechanical playsets.

Using my curiosity to inspire, I led my team in prototyping a whole gaming experience with building instruction cards that prompt young mechanical engineers to build simple machines or scenes that through combination become interactive playsets or montage sequences. More than just plug-n-play actors, the modular bots perform for “the sets,” plugging in directly to power the mechanical playsets.

Most brands oversimplify the back-end tech with plug’n play. But the act of plugging creates unique sequences that teaches cause n’ effect; in turn, encouraging more hacking. Ready for more? Draw a Montage Card to break down how to build a complex machine powered by your Montage Bot, with digestible engineering concepts at any learning speed.

0A-1 ● COLLECT THEM ALL

With two clicks, modular pieces that house brain chips, speakers and motors connect via USB to make personable robots based on their unique combinations.

0A-2 ● NOT AN EVERYDAY COLLECTIBLE

To avoid the pitfalls of becoming just consumer trophies, each piece is inspired by easily hackable, found objects that combine to automate simple or complex machines built by the kids.

0B-1 ● MONTAGE CARDS

Use the deck of cards in the app or IRL — depending on screen time rules — to break down steps for each simple machine or “thingamajig” and simple playset decor or “doodad” to create complex machines or “thingamabobs.”

0B-2 ● MONTAGE IRL

Finally, hack together the complex machines (aka scenes) to create a play-set sequence just like in a movie montage.

Through previous research studies, I knew that collectible kits dominated the girl toy market. But with their lack of educational value and 100% consumer mentality, I took the team to school fairs, after school classrooms and in-home visits to try and uncover untapped trends and themes.

During home tours, we saw that girls were obsessed with collectibles but also equally obsessed with hacking various kits together to build worlds for their collectibles — cementing the opportunity space of montage building bots and sets to be next on the product roadmap.

Montage embraces popular Toy trends while providing real educational value by teaching the fundamentals of electronic and simple machine sequences. Leading the strategy behind the character, modular and electronic system design, my team evolved a playset offering into a free-thinking, creative STEAM building space.

0A ● CHARACTER CODING

Exploration began with exploratory animations of movement, music and voice to become cause n’ effect building pieces — with real time feedback to guide young engineers building electronic circuits.

0B ● ELECTRICAL THINKING

Under the hood I designed custom firmware with a “non-coder friendly guide,” enabling each team member to provide creative input on the personality sequences.

0C ● GRID MAKING

To efficiently determine the modular grid system, I prototyped at the same time the playsets’ grid surfaces and adapters based on the grid measurements for the 3D printed bot shells with manufacture-ready internal structures.

0D ● IN-CONTEXT PLAYTESTING

While validating concepts in families’ homes, I was inspired seeing kids using the card decks to create games that got them into more failure positive modes with less pressure to perfectly build. Having more willingness to evolve their builds through trial & error, they ended up with solutions light years from how they originally saw answers to the problem prompts.