1 00:00:10,844 --> 00:00:13,054 [Cas Holman] When I design toys, I want children to create 2 00:00:13,138 --> 00:00:15,932 from their imaginations rather than following instructions. 3 00:00:17,183 --> 00:00:18,685 If I were to give kids a set of parts 4 00:00:18,768 --> 00:00:20,770 -and tell them to build a car... -[engine revving] 5 00:00:20,854 --> 00:00:22,856 ...there would be a right and a wrong answer. 6 00:00:23,231 --> 00:00:27,068 They already have an understanding and archetype of what a car is. 7 00:00:27,235 --> 00:00:28,695 It's a finished idea. 8 00:00:30,405 --> 00:00:33,241 On the other hand, if I give them the parts and pieces and say, 9 00:00:33,324 --> 00:00:35,160 "Build a way to get to school," 10 00:00:36,870 --> 00:00:38,872 then there's room for many ideas. 11 00:00:39,622 --> 00:00:42,751 And they could make a sidewalk, or a rocket launcher, 12 00:00:42,834 --> 00:00:44,544 or a bird saddle. 13 00:00:45,086 --> 00:00:47,589 My work as a designer is to give them these tools, 14 00:00:47,672 --> 00:00:52,552 so that they are free to imagine, explore ideas, and invent new things. 15 00:00:53,762 --> 00:00:55,305 [theme music playing] 16 00:01:49,567 --> 00:01:51,569 [machine whirring and grinding] 17 00:01:56,616 --> 00:01:59,744 [Cas] I wouldn't say that I design toys per se. 18 00:02:01,830 --> 00:02:05,333 There's a connotation with the word "toy," which is kind of frivolous. 19 00:02:05,416 --> 00:02:08,670 And so I say that I design for play. 20 00:02:09,295 --> 00:02:12,632 Which is kind of weird because it sounds like I'm saying "designing foreplay." 21 00:02:12,757 --> 00:02:15,009 So, it's not a perfect title... 22 00:02:16,052 --> 00:02:18,179 but it's different than designing play, right? 23 00:02:18,263 --> 00:02:19,722 We don't design the play, 24 00:02:19,806 --> 00:02:22,100 we design for the circumstances of play to arise. 25 00:02:27,730 --> 00:02:32,318 I have a hard time distinguishing play from design. 26 00:02:32,402 --> 00:02:35,113 In a way, a lot of what we do in design is play. 27 00:02:35,196 --> 00:02:38,199 Testing things out as ideas, as concepts, 28 00:02:38,283 --> 00:02:41,536 but also as objects in space, we’ll play with things. 29 00:02:43,746 --> 00:02:47,125 I like to start with kind of an experiential goal 30 00:02:47,417 --> 00:02:52,630 and then design the object or the system or the playground or whatever it is, 31 00:02:52,714 --> 00:02:54,382 design that around it. 32 00:02:55,717 --> 00:02:57,927 I've been working on something called The Critter, 33 00:02:58,803 --> 00:03:01,055 which is in the early phases. 34 00:03:01,764 --> 00:03:04,475 I saw an old pommel horse 35 00:03:04,601 --> 00:03:05,685 and they're so beautiful 36 00:03:05,768 --> 00:03:09,147 and they're such an interesting kind of abstraction of a horse. 37 00:03:09,230 --> 00:03:12,066 And I remembered that I loved playing on that. 38 00:03:12,317 --> 00:03:14,903 And then I started looking more at ride-on toys, 39 00:03:14,986 --> 00:03:18,031 so some other old ones 40 00:03:18,156 --> 00:03:22,952 that you might crank to make it move forward. 41 00:03:23,703 --> 00:03:27,040 And just kind of some simple versions. 42 00:03:30,376 --> 00:03:34,047 The Critter has holes in it and things plug in, 43 00:03:34,130 --> 00:03:36,299 so if they want it to have wheels, it can have wheels. 44 00:03:36,382 --> 00:03:38,176 If they want it to have a rocker, 45 00:03:38,259 --> 00:03:40,762 it can have rocking legs that would plug in. 46 00:03:40,845 --> 00:03:45,058 And then whatever other kinds of, maybe, feet 47 00:03:45,141 --> 00:03:47,810 or things that spin. 48 00:03:49,437 --> 00:03:52,607 So, it can be a creature or a vehicle 49 00:03:52,690 --> 00:03:55,652 or an invention of their own, hopefully. 50 00:03:57,403 --> 00:04:02,033 [man] All along the roofline in her studio are sketch after sketch after sketch 51 00:04:02,116 --> 00:04:04,244 that are stapled, taped, pinned. 52 00:04:04,327 --> 00:04:06,329 Every time I go, there's different sketches 53 00:04:06,621 --> 00:04:09,332 and, you know, the next thing she's thinking about. 54 00:04:11,167 --> 00:04:15,213 [Cas] I think of sketching as an extension of my brain. 55 00:04:15,922 --> 00:04:18,341 Like, I have an idea and can't really figure it out 56 00:04:18,424 --> 00:04:21,678 until my hand is helping. So, sometimes I have an idea 57 00:04:21,761 --> 00:04:25,932 of what it is in my head, but it's usually not finished until I get it on paper. 58 00:04:27,725 --> 00:04:30,478 I don't find words as useful as images. 59 00:04:31,604 --> 00:04:33,731 So, in communicating it to other people, 60 00:04:34,023 --> 00:04:38,778 I always manage to come at things from a completely different direction. 61 00:04:40,113 --> 00:04:43,324 So, when I worked for a bigger design firm, 62 00:04:43,408 --> 00:04:46,911 I would get called in to meetings to be the wildcard. 63 00:04:48,037 --> 00:04:49,539 [man] Cas is a designer, 64 00:04:49,622 --> 00:04:53,418 but she's, like, kind of off the normal professional way. 65 00:04:54,419 --> 00:04:55,753 She's like a kid 66 00:04:56,087 --> 00:05:00,258 and so happy and excited about stuff 67 00:05:00,341 --> 00:05:02,677 that it makes everything that she's doing fun. 68 00:05:03,678 --> 00:05:05,596 [Cas] When I was working with Rockwell Group, 69 00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:10,601 David Rockwell had started the momentum of a kind of a pet project of his interest 70 00:05:10,685 --> 00:05:12,186 of reinventing the playground. 71 00:05:12,603 --> 00:05:14,731 I wound up on that project, which was a dream. 72 00:05:15,815 --> 00:05:17,525 When I was first put on that project, 73 00:05:17,608 --> 00:05:20,278 I was just sketching different forms of playground. 74 00:05:20,361 --> 00:05:22,697 How can we make a playground look different? 75 00:05:23,865 --> 00:05:29,037 Beautiful sculptural things and different ways of holding up a slide. 76 00:05:30,163 --> 00:05:33,750 But I could tell it looked different, but the play was the same. 77 00:05:34,250 --> 00:05:38,171 So, I started doing this thing. I would draw a child 78 00:05:38,588 --> 00:05:40,381 in different positions 79 00:05:40,465 --> 00:05:43,718 and then sketch a way to get them there. 80 00:05:43,801 --> 00:05:48,973 So, the slide is adrenaline and quick, uncontrolled movement. 81 00:05:49,432 --> 00:05:51,726 How else can I facilitate that? 82 00:05:53,728 --> 00:05:55,938 Ultimately, the design of the... 83 00:05:56,022 --> 00:05:58,191 Now, they're kind of called the Big Blue Blocks. 84 00:05:58,358 --> 00:06:01,569 They're based on the Caroline Pratt Unit Blocks, 85 00:06:01,736 --> 00:06:05,531 the most basic modular building blocks. They're just giant. 86 00:06:06,366 --> 00:06:09,994 And we designed a way for children to build and create 87 00:06:10,078 --> 00:06:12,580 a playground that would change and evolve throughout the day. 88 00:06:14,957 --> 00:06:17,543 So, the Big Blue Blocks came out of 89 00:06:17,710 --> 00:06:22,465 the idea of an ever-evolving playground that's designed by children. 90 00:06:26,094 --> 00:06:29,097 [woman] We tend to downplay play, as if it's... 91 00:06:29,722 --> 00:06:34,769 that frivolous, joyful thing that children do, but it's really their world. 92 00:06:35,228 --> 00:06:37,397 It's like the water that they swim in. 93 00:06:38,272 --> 00:06:41,275 And so free play, where there's not a right or wrong answer, 94 00:06:41,359 --> 00:06:45,905 gives them this sense of "I can do it, I can think for myself." 95 00:06:45,988 --> 00:06:49,200 In psychology, we call it agency or, you know, confidence. 96 00:06:49,283 --> 00:06:51,661 But it's that idea that the child really feels like, 97 00:06:51,744 --> 00:06:54,914 "Hey, I had an idea, and I did it." 98 00:06:55,039 --> 00:06:56,666 And that then spurs on learning. 99 00:06:59,961 --> 00:07:01,295 [Cas] I remember as a kid, 100 00:07:01,379 --> 00:07:05,049 I began to learn that our constructed environments 101 00:07:05,133 --> 00:07:10,596 were places that enforced certain hierarchies and power structures 102 00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:13,850 that were not friendly to everybody, particularly children. 103 00:07:13,933 --> 00:07:16,686 And I have a few really specific memories 104 00:07:16,769 --> 00:07:20,106 of being so mad about the height of sinks. 105 00:07:20,231 --> 00:07:21,399 [laughs] 106 00:07:22,525 --> 00:07:25,862 The height of sinks I just thought made no sense. 107 00:07:25,945 --> 00:07:28,823 I was aware that they were not designed for me. 108 00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:33,119 I just knew this is totally stupid and adults are ridiculous 109 00:07:33,202 --> 00:07:35,580 and these sinks are such a stupid height. 110 00:07:35,788 --> 00:07:38,541 You know, 'cause I was like, "An adult could use a low sink, 111 00:07:38,624 --> 00:07:40,209 but children can't use a high sink. 112 00:07:40,293 --> 00:07:43,254 Like, this isn't a hard problem to solve, people. Come on, get with it." 113 00:07:48,176 --> 00:07:53,306 I want my designs to speak to the weirdos. Like, I don't know how else to say it. 114 00:07:55,183 --> 00:07:59,437 But I want them to be tools for children to feel understood. 115 00:08:02,273 --> 00:08:04,317 My first product was called Geemo. 116 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:10,072 At the time, I was looking at a lot of different patterns in nature, 117 00:08:10,156 --> 00:08:12,909 and with Geemo, specifically bone marrow. 118 00:08:13,910 --> 00:08:18,539 And so I was thinking about how one unit can make an irregular pattern. 119 00:08:19,290 --> 00:08:22,335 Geemo is on a three-pointed grid, but the center is off. 120 00:08:22,418 --> 00:08:24,378 Like, I scooted the center a little bit. 121 00:08:25,087 --> 00:08:29,509 And so I made a whole series of different parts and pieces with limbs, 122 00:08:29,884 --> 00:08:34,472 figuring something out where it would join and become all one piece. 123 00:08:35,264 --> 00:08:37,642 And then the magnetic ends, 124 00:08:37,934 --> 00:08:41,729 that was very specific to it becoming a more open-ended toy 125 00:08:41,812 --> 00:08:44,482 because I thought about making them different colors, 126 00:08:44,565 --> 00:08:46,025 that positive might be one color 127 00:08:46,108 --> 00:08:48,027 and negative might be another, so they match up. 128 00:08:48,653 --> 00:08:51,405 But there's something, I think, wonderful about 129 00:08:51,489 --> 00:08:53,741 when the magnets don't meet. 130 00:08:54,575 --> 00:08:58,454 And if it had the instructions built into it through color coding, 131 00:08:58,538 --> 00:09:02,500 you would figure that out and then never do it wrong and never have that moment. 132 00:09:03,834 --> 00:09:07,088 I worked with one company that was gonna bring it into production 133 00:09:07,171 --> 00:09:09,840 and kind of at the last minute, they said, 134 00:09:09,924 --> 00:09:13,302 "Okay, so what are the characters? What are the faces?" 135 00:09:13,636 --> 00:09:16,305 And I was like, "Wait, what? What do you mean?" 136 00:09:16,389 --> 00:09:18,849 And they were like, "Well, you know, obviously, the face." 137 00:09:19,183 --> 00:09:21,561 And I just said, "Wait, what? How..." 138 00:09:21,644 --> 00:09:24,855 Like, they had been making an assumption about... 139 00:09:25,106 --> 00:09:29,026 that this wasn't finished, that I was going to put some kind of face on it. 140 00:09:29,318 --> 00:09:32,738 And I was like, "Wait, no. No, that's not that... What?" 141 00:09:33,948 --> 00:09:37,034 I decided not to work with them after that. [laughs] 142 00:09:38,327 --> 00:09:41,122 People say, "Oh, well, does it... But kids like colors!" 143 00:09:41,664 --> 00:09:44,417 And I'm like, "Kids are actually pretty sophisticated. 144 00:09:44,500 --> 00:09:46,586 Like, they can play with a white toy 145 00:09:46,669 --> 00:09:51,132 and appreciate that the color isn't telling them what it is." 146 00:09:53,175 --> 00:09:54,510 It won an award. 147 00:09:54,885 --> 00:09:58,764 So, it launched in the New York MoMA Design Store in 2006. 148 00:09:59,056 --> 00:10:00,016 And... 149 00:10:00,516 --> 00:10:05,146 I had a couple chances to license the idea to another company, 150 00:10:05,313 --> 00:10:07,523 but I was... young, 151 00:10:08,316 --> 00:10:09,692 naive, and arrogant. 152 00:10:09,775 --> 00:10:13,446 So, I said, "I'll just... I want to do this myself." [laughs] 153 00:10:14,238 --> 00:10:17,408 Which, trial by fire. I learned so much 154 00:10:17,491 --> 00:10:21,037 and it took years and a lot of money. 155 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:25,791 And there were times that Geemo had a studio and a place to live, 156 00:10:25,875 --> 00:10:27,043 but I did not. 157 00:10:28,210 --> 00:10:30,463 The running of that part of the business, 158 00:10:30,755 --> 00:10:32,423 it was all I was doing. 159 00:10:32,757 --> 00:10:34,425 And I realized that, 160 00:10:34,508 --> 00:10:37,303 you know, what I wanted to be doing was designing more toys. 161 00:10:39,555 --> 00:10:41,891 My company is called Heroes Will Rise, 162 00:10:41,974 --> 00:10:44,018 and I launched it in 2006. 163 00:10:44,143 --> 00:10:46,979 Essentially, we tried to design it 164 00:10:47,063 --> 00:10:49,148 such that there are... 165 00:10:49,231 --> 00:10:51,692 In and of itself, it's modular for the manufacturing. 166 00:10:51,776 --> 00:10:54,987 So this is a scale model just with foam core of this one. 167 00:10:55,071 --> 00:10:57,198 -[man] Three and a half? -Three and a half. 168 00:10:58,366 --> 00:11:01,494 [Cas] I no longer have to live on couches, which is nice. 169 00:11:02,036 --> 00:11:03,329 I'm no longer doing it alone. 170 00:11:03,412 --> 00:11:06,582 I have an incredible business manager named Doug Johnson, 171 00:11:06,666 --> 00:11:08,376 who was a game-changer. 172 00:11:09,669 --> 00:11:14,965 The motto and kind of the driving force is "easy is boring." 173 00:11:16,217 --> 00:11:19,762 "Easy" meaning something that doesn't engage your thinking. 174 00:11:20,930 --> 00:11:23,099 There's an assumption in the field of design 175 00:11:23,182 --> 00:11:25,142 that easy is great, right? 176 00:11:25,226 --> 00:11:27,687 "My God, I have to push three buttons, that's a problem. 177 00:11:27,770 --> 00:11:29,271 I should just have to push one button." 178 00:11:29,355 --> 00:11:32,441 And I'm not quite sure why that's a good thing. 179 00:11:32,817 --> 00:11:36,487 When I was in Japan, I became familiar with this partnership, 180 00:11:36,570 --> 00:11:40,658 Arakawa, he was an architect, and Madeline Gins, who was a poet. 181 00:11:41,117 --> 00:11:44,787 And Arakawa and Gins had a kind of a thinking group 182 00:11:44,870 --> 00:11:47,164 that was called Architecture Against Death. 183 00:11:47,957 --> 00:11:50,584 And the core of their ideas was that 184 00:11:50,668 --> 00:11:53,671 if life is predictable, you're a zombie. 185 00:11:54,255 --> 00:11:58,467 So the Architecture Against Death was about, "Why do floors need to be flat? 186 00:11:58,551 --> 00:12:00,720 What if you had to pay attention while you walk?" 187 00:12:00,928 --> 00:12:03,764 You know, "Why do we have rectilinear corners?" 188 00:12:04,306 --> 00:12:08,352 So the idea is that you should be aware and be paying attention, 189 00:12:08,436 --> 00:12:10,730 and that's how you stay young and continue thinking. 190 00:12:13,107 --> 00:12:15,234 I kind of, like, was poking around and realizing... 191 00:12:15,317 --> 00:12:18,112 "Right, we kind of have, like... Toys are kind of crap." 192 00:12:21,490 --> 00:12:24,535 They're plastic. They're, like... They're not... They're just... 193 00:12:25,119 --> 00:12:28,330 They're... They're not something kids are getting something out of. 194 00:12:28,497 --> 00:12:29,331 [doll] Mama! 195 00:12:29,915 --> 00:12:33,127 [Cas] I started to feel like they were designed to keep kids occupied... 196 00:12:33,294 --> 00:12:35,296 -[toy laughing] -...or they were designed to sell. 197 00:12:35,671 --> 00:12:40,634 But they weren't really designed with children and play value in mind. 198 00:12:41,677 --> 00:12:44,722 Lots of toys are very goal oriented. 199 00:12:44,972 --> 00:12:46,766 They look like something, 200 00:12:46,849 --> 00:12:48,642 there's one way to play with it. 201 00:12:48,726 --> 00:12:52,772 So, you quickly figure out it can go this way or that way and then you're done. 202 00:12:52,855 --> 00:12:56,066 So it sort of shuts down that building on their own 203 00:12:56,525 --> 00:12:58,778 pleasure and engagement and enjoyment. 204 00:13:00,070 --> 00:13:03,866 [Cas] You see Rigamajig being used by a group of kids 205 00:13:04,116 --> 00:13:05,659 and you get it. 206 00:13:06,327 --> 00:13:08,621 You have an emotional understanding of it. 207 00:13:09,663 --> 00:13:13,000 Rigamajig is a kit of parts 208 00:13:13,083 --> 00:13:16,170 that could be seen as a learning material. 209 00:13:16,378 --> 00:13:19,381 It could be seen as a toy or a playground. 210 00:13:19,465 --> 00:13:24,220 I think of it as a glorified pile of construction debris. 211 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:27,181 There are so many parts and pieces to it. 212 00:13:27,264 --> 00:13:29,517 It has planks, nuts and bolts, 213 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:33,062 some corner brackets, hooks, and there's a pulley. 214 00:13:33,938 --> 00:13:36,690 What I did in designing it, I wanted children to be able 215 00:13:36,774 --> 00:13:40,194 to build without mastering a tool. 216 00:13:40,402 --> 00:13:42,363 So, I wanted it to be 217 00:13:42,780 --> 00:13:46,575 intuitive and usable for small hands. 218 00:13:46,742 --> 00:13:49,370 I took the... kind of a wingnut, 219 00:13:49,537 --> 00:13:52,414 and I took the wings off of the nut and put it on the bolt, 220 00:13:52,498 --> 00:13:55,334 so the bolt and the nut can easily be screwed in 221 00:13:55,417 --> 00:13:58,420 and actually get pretty tight without using any kind of tool. 222 00:13:58,963 --> 00:14:01,090 And those are intentionally black. 223 00:14:01,173 --> 00:14:03,634 They are meant to look like real hardware. 224 00:14:03,717 --> 00:14:06,512 The boards are three-quarter-inch plywood. 225 00:14:06,595 --> 00:14:09,723 They're heavy planks. You know, it's a very large, heavy piece of wood. 226 00:14:09,807 --> 00:14:13,978 Children really often when they first encounter Rigamajig say, "This is real." 227 00:14:14,061 --> 00:14:16,272 [children chatter excitedly] 228 00:14:17,481 --> 00:14:20,568 You can see them kind of like, "Oh, okay," you know. 229 00:14:20,651 --> 00:14:24,864 And they play with it differently, and they know that they can impact space 230 00:14:24,947 --> 00:14:27,658 and that they can make something larger than themselves, 231 00:14:28,158 --> 00:14:29,785 and being entrusted with real materials 232 00:14:29,869 --> 00:14:31,620 is also hugely empowering for them. 233 00:14:32,496 --> 00:14:33,789 [excited chatter] 234 00:14:33,914 --> 00:14:36,584 [Cas] Originally, Rigamajig was part of a commission 235 00:14:36,667 --> 00:14:39,420 by the Friends of The High Line in New York City. 236 00:14:39,503 --> 00:14:42,298 It was the High Line Children's Workyard Kit. 237 00:14:42,882 --> 00:14:46,552 And was just so successful, 238 00:14:46,635 --> 00:14:50,055 and I got such great feedback, specifically from teachers, 239 00:14:50,472 --> 00:14:53,601 saying, "This is wonderful. I want to use this in the classroom." 240 00:14:56,228 --> 00:14:58,856 I tried to sell it to some other companies. 241 00:14:59,189 --> 00:15:01,191 They were like, "This is too weird." 242 00:15:01,984 --> 00:15:04,987 I started to bring it to the market on my own. 243 00:15:05,654 --> 00:15:08,032 The first time I showed it, I was pretty discouraged. 244 00:15:08,157 --> 00:15:10,784 The feedback was like, "Where does it even fit in?" 245 00:15:11,035 --> 00:15:14,455 [Bruce] You know, it's really hard trying to put it into one of the boxes 246 00:15:14,538 --> 00:15:17,791 in the industry, 'cause there's really nothing else out there like it. 247 00:15:19,335 --> 00:15:21,503 I'd like to see a lot more of it, personally, 248 00:15:21,670 --> 00:15:25,090 'cause things do seem too repetitive and prescribed. 249 00:15:25,341 --> 00:15:28,469 Uh, and I think kids want the more open-ended, 250 00:15:28,552 --> 00:15:30,471 and I think they need more open-ended. 251 00:15:30,554 --> 00:15:32,848 You know, they get taught enough instructions. 252 00:15:33,682 --> 00:15:36,310 [male voiceover] If we manufactured our children in a child factory, 253 00:15:36,393 --> 00:15:39,355 they'd all be alike. Then we could teach them very easily. 254 00:15:41,023 --> 00:15:43,984 [Cas] I've always been interested in, "How can school be different? 255 00:15:44,068 --> 00:15:45,611 Why does school have to look like that?" 256 00:15:45,694 --> 00:15:48,113 [male voiceover] Elementary schoolroom USA. 257 00:15:48,614 --> 00:15:51,200 It's a wonderful part of the American scene. 258 00:15:51,617 --> 00:15:53,702 It's commonplace, but important. 259 00:15:53,953 --> 00:15:56,413 And it's quite the same whether it's in a big city, 260 00:15:56,497 --> 00:15:58,666 average town, or country hamlet. 261 00:15:59,166 --> 00:16:00,626 [school bell rings] 262 00:16:01,001 --> 00:16:04,338 [Cas] The rows of desks, there's an expert at the front. 263 00:16:04,421 --> 00:16:07,508 The assumption that, like, we're just an empty sponge 264 00:16:07,591 --> 00:16:10,344 and the teacher is the vessel of knowledge. 265 00:16:10,427 --> 00:16:12,054 "I'm gonna tell you a bunch of stuff, 266 00:16:12,137 --> 00:16:14,890 and now it's in your brain and now you know it." 267 00:16:16,392 --> 00:16:19,478 We're still using a model that was developed around industrialization. 268 00:16:19,561 --> 00:16:22,147 It was developed to make factory workers. 269 00:16:22,982 --> 00:16:26,402 I figured this out pretty early on that in school, 270 00:16:26,485 --> 00:16:29,405 what I was being assessed on was how good at school I was. 271 00:16:29,488 --> 00:16:31,865 And then we reinforce this with SATs and things like this. 272 00:16:32,324 --> 00:16:35,995 But this is not a gauge of intelligence. It's a gauge of how well you take tests. 273 00:16:37,913 --> 00:16:39,081 School was hard. 274 00:16:40,165 --> 00:16:44,086 Like, when I saw my peers doing well, I just was like, 275 00:16:44,169 --> 00:16:46,338 "All right, I guess they're just smarter than me." 276 00:16:46,922 --> 00:16:50,300 And I think the things that I'm good at weren't celebrated 277 00:16:50,384 --> 00:16:52,845 and they weren't seen as something that was smart. 278 00:16:53,387 --> 00:16:55,472 And it just didn't make sense to me 279 00:16:55,556 --> 00:16:59,101 that we were spending our childhood indoors. [chuckles] 280 00:17:01,020 --> 00:17:03,063 Classroom should be about the world that's outside, 281 00:17:03,147 --> 00:17:06,900 not its own weird tomb of archaic knowledge. 282 00:17:08,944 --> 00:17:14,783 Working with design students and designing for children or early education, 283 00:17:14,908 --> 00:17:17,870 it all starts to feel like it's all the same thing, 284 00:17:17,953 --> 00:17:21,749 and I think that my teaching with undergraduate art students 285 00:17:21,999 --> 00:17:24,126 is more influenced by 286 00:17:24,293 --> 00:17:29,006 what I know and have understood about early education than vice versa. 287 00:17:29,506 --> 00:17:32,468 [Cas] Uh... Let's start over here. 288 00:17:33,135 --> 00:17:35,012 We're not critiquing a final piece. 289 00:17:35,345 --> 00:17:38,724 We're testing, so I think it's up to the artist what... 290 00:17:38,807 --> 00:17:42,770 Think about what you want to learn, right? Or what you're curious about. 291 00:17:43,270 --> 00:17:46,940 Be strategic about what you tell us. Right? 292 00:17:47,024 --> 00:17:50,527 [Cas] In the classroom, we play constantly. 293 00:17:51,111 --> 00:17:54,073 So, the longest part is the cylinder that goes up, 294 00:17:54,156 --> 00:17:58,077 and then this is the most confusing shape, 'cause I don't know the name for it. 295 00:17:58,243 --> 00:18:00,954 It's like a cylinder has been carved into it. 296 00:18:01,038 --> 00:18:02,414 -[man] Is this your object? -Hey! 297 00:18:02,498 --> 00:18:03,874 [students laugh] 298 00:18:03,957 --> 00:18:05,292 This is the object. 299 00:18:05,417 --> 00:18:06,710 [laughter] 300 00:18:09,088 --> 00:18:13,300 [Cas] My first year of teaching, I had the Introduction to Design students. 301 00:18:13,383 --> 00:18:14,760 I had so much fun 302 00:18:15,719 --> 00:18:19,098 designing these exercises and these assignments for them. 303 00:18:19,181 --> 00:18:20,891 We were calling it Name By Function. 304 00:18:20,974 --> 00:18:22,768 So instead of saying, "Let's all design a mug," 305 00:18:22,851 --> 00:18:24,770 it's like, “Design a way to transport water.” 306 00:18:25,437 --> 00:18:29,817 So, you know, they'll have them sketch ten ways to transport water 307 00:18:29,900 --> 00:18:32,653 not found in the kitchen. Okay, so there's a hose... 308 00:18:32,903 --> 00:18:36,281 The really great thinkers will say, "Okay, you know, my hands cupped together 309 00:18:36,365 --> 00:18:39,868 is a way of transporting water." "My mouth." "A sponge." 310 00:18:39,952 --> 00:18:42,329 And then I'll say, "Okay, now sketch ten more." 311 00:18:42,579 --> 00:18:45,499 It's a fun exercise to do with beginning design students 312 00:18:45,582 --> 00:18:49,044 who thought that they were going to come to school and design shoes and cars. 313 00:18:49,128 --> 00:18:53,423 And I'm like, "No! Let's have an existential crisis instead." 314 00:19:00,764 --> 00:19:04,351 Growing up, we lived in the woods in Grass Valley, California, 315 00:19:04,560 --> 00:19:05,602 near the Yuba River. 316 00:19:08,647 --> 00:19:11,775 It's all just gorgeous, hot rocks. 317 00:19:12,734 --> 00:19:15,529 I was almost always outside. 318 00:19:18,657 --> 00:19:19,867 And so, 319 00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:23,537 I think I understand, through my own experience, 320 00:19:23,620 --> 00:19:28,250 the value and the joy and the importance of play. 321 00:19:32,045 --> 00:19:34,798 And particularly of free play. 322 00:19:37,217 --> 00:19:39,136 I was raised by a single parent. 323 00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:41,138 My mom worked a lot. 324 00:19:42,389 --> 00:19:45,851 So, I mostly played alone. I was what would be considered a latchkey kid, 325 00:19:45,934 --> 00:19:47,477 but the house didn't have keys, 326 00:19:47,561 --> 00:19:49,104 so that never fit. 327 00:19:49,521 --> 00:19:52,566 People would say, "You're a latchkey kid." I was like, "No, I don't have a key." 328 00:19:52,649 --> 00:19:53,609 Real literal about it. 329 00:19:54,568 --> 00:19:55,944 And it's hard 330 00:19:56,195 --> 00:19:58,864 when I think about her when somebody says, you know, "What did you do? 331 00:19:58,947 --> 00:20:00,616 What was your play?" And I'm like, "Oh..." 332 00:20:01,033 --> 00:20:03,702 That's... It was play, so it was noth... Like, I don't... 333 00:20:04,036 --> 00:20:06,371 I don't know, I was outside doing, like... 334 00:20:07,206 --> 00:20:09,541 Poking a dead thing with a stick. 335 00:20:09,625 --> 00:20:12,419 Like... It's this... Climbing a tree. I don't know what I did up there, 336 00:20:12,502 --> 00:20:15,255 but I was doing it for three hours. Like, that's also the point of play 337 00:20:16,006 --> 00:20:20,594 is that there's not an outcome other than that it's intuitive. 338 00:20:22,554 --> 00:20:25,474 [woman] I made a mark here about where ten was. 339 00:20:25,682 --> 00:20:26,808 Ten yards. 340 00:20:29,019 --> 00:20:30,604 So are you going to shoot after I shoot? 341 00:20:30,687 --> 00:20:31,730 -[Cas] Yeah. -Good. 342 00:20:38,278 --> 00:20:41,615 -[Cas] It's such a satisfying sound. -Okay. It is, isn't it? 343 00:20:42,532 --> 00:20:45,369 [Gerri] I always wanted my kids to take their curiosity 344 00:20:45,452 --> 00:20:46,912 just as far as it would go. 345 00:20:47,204 --> 00:20:49,331 You know? So, I always encouraged that. 346 00:20:49,414 --> 00:20:50,332 Wow. 347 00:20:50,540 --> 00:20:53,043 I think I almost held the thing still at that point. 348 00:20:53,126 --> 00:20:54,753 -Oh, good. -No finger... 349 00:20:54,878 --> 00:20:55,921 [Gerri] When she was young, 350 00:20:56,004 --> 00:20:58,590 our property had been cleared of a lot of manzanita, 351 00:20:58,924 --> 00:21:00,801 but they'd never been really dug up, 352 00:21:00,884 --> 00:21:03,887 so there's all these little manzanita stumps all over the yard. 353 00:21:03,971 --> 00:21:07,307 And she would go out there barefoot, and she would always be hurting herself 354 00:21:07,391 --> 00:21:09,768 and stubbing her toes. And so she told me 355 00:21:09,893 --> 00:21:12,312 that I needed to go out there and clear the yard. 356 00:21:12,479 --> 00:21:16,233 And I said, "Well, why don't you put on some shoes when you go out there?" 357 00:21:16,525 --> 00:21:19,611 "I can't be bothered with shoes. I'm too busy playing." 358 00:21:19,987 --> 00:21:22,114 So, that was her attitude. [laughs] 359 00:21:22,823 --> 00:21:24,992 -Here's attitude right here. -[Cas laughs] 360 00:21:26,118 --> 00:21:27,577 [Gerri] I didn't worry too much. 361 00:21:27,661 --> 00:21:31,123 You know, we always made sure that when... before they jumped off a rock, 362 00:21:31,206 --> 00:21:33,417 they knew they needed to check the depth of the water 363 00:21:33,500 --> 00:21:35,419 and what they were jumping into type thing. 364 00:21:35,877 --> 00:21:39,298 But as far as what their actual choices to do in that space, 365 00:21:39,715 --> 00:21:41,466 I... I didn't really worry too much. 366 00:21:43,844 --> 00:21:46,638 -This would be the mom section. -[Gerri laughs] 367 00:21:46,722 --> 00:21:48,724 And this is the Cas section. 368 00:21:50,392 --> 00:21:54,187 [Cas] I think that all humans play because we have to. 369 00:21:56,523 --> 00:21:58,191 Increasingly, we're starting to understand 370 00:21:58,275 --> 00:22:00,444 how much animals play, not just to learn. 371 00:22:01,194 --> 00:22:04,740 We know that children and animals will play as a way of learning. 372 00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:06,241 Bears play fight, 373 00:22:06,325 --> 00:22:08,827 and that's kinda how they're learning to actually fight. 374 00:22:08,910 --> 00:22:10,620 But they also play for enjoyment. 375 00:22:11,705 --> 00:22:15,375 This is the beauty of YouTube. We can now watch videos of crows 376 00:22:15,584 --> 00:22:20,464 using a yogurt lid to slide down a roof that has snow on it 377 00:22:20,547 --> 00:22:24,634 and then climb back up and slide down again for no purpose other than play 378 00:22:24,718 --> 00:22:26,595 and the enjoyment of the act. 379 00:22:28,305 --> 00:22:31,767 Play is as essential as food, air, sleep, 380 00:22:31,850 --> 00:22:33,894 whatever else we have to do to stay alive. 381 00:22:34,561 --> 00:22:37,272 Play is therapy. It engages our brain, 382 00:22:37,356 --> 00:22:41,151 it gets our body and our mind back in tune with each other. 383 00:22:41,443 --> 00:22:44,946 As kids, we lose some of the inhibition that happens on a playground, 384 00:22:45,030 --> 00:22:48,200 but it translates into different places in our lives, I think. 385 00:22:49,201 --> 00:22:52,871 Moving our bodies around, whether it's in some kind of sport or exercise 386 00:22:52,954 --> 00:22:56,166 or, for me, dance has more of a flow to it. 387 00:22:57,834 --> 00:23:01,338 Dancing is more than part of my inspiration process. 388 00:23:01,421 --> 00:23:06,259 I think dancing is part of my "being a sane human" process. 389 00:23:07,844 --> 00:23:11,431 I enjoy dancing quite a bit, and I'm a very good breakdancer. 390 00:23:12,057 --> 00:23:15,394 I came up with this persona when I was living in San Francisco, 391 00:23:15,477 --> 00:23:18,146 a fellow named Electro, the Pop and Lock King. 392 00:23:18,271 --> 00:23:21,316 And I was doing drag at a club called Tranny Shack. 393 00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:26,446 And really amazing, active, creative performance art, drag scene. 394 00:23:26,738 --> 00:23:27,739 In the meantime, 395 00:23:27,823 --> 00:23:30,951 I was trying to pretend to be a person who could work in an office. 396 00:23:31,493 --> 00:23:35,372 At the time, The Maury Povich Show was doing these pageants. 397 00:23:35,956 --> 00:23:38,250 "Is it a man or a woman?" While the audience shouted, 398 00:23:38,333 --> 00:23:39,709 "It's a man! It's a woman!" 399 00:23:39,793 --> 00:23:41,211 She's a man, baby! Yeah! 400 00:23:41,294 --> 00:23:43,422 [Cas] Which is so beyond messy now, and I kind... 401 00:23:43,505 --> 00:23:46,174 I knew that at the time also, but I'd never been to New York. 402 00:23:47,092 --> 00:23:49,594 And I said, "So... [chuckles] 403 00:23:50,053 --> 00:23:53,640 ...is it okay if I take this day off to fly to New York 404 00:23:53,723 --> 00:23:55,809 to be on The Maury Povich Show?" 405 00:23:56,643 --> 00:23:58,728 Flip to two months later when the show aired, 406 00:23:58,812 --> 00:24:00,981 they shut down the entire office, 407 00:24:01,064 --> 00:24:03,984 and we all piled into the conference room to watch it on TV. 408 00:24:04,401 --> 00:24:05,735 So, Electro, come on out! 409 00:24:05,819 --> 00:24:06,903 [dance music playing] 410 00:24:06,987 --> 00:24:08,447 [crowd cheering] 411 00:24:08,780 --> 00:24:10,449 [Cas] Which was... Well, it was mortifying. 412 00:24:13,285 --> 00:24:17,789 But it was also amazing, because here were these people being super supportive 413 00:24:17,873 --> 00:24:20,125 and embracing that side of me, which I thought 414 00:24:20,208 --> 00:24:22,043 had previously been kind of secret. 415 00:24:23,837 --> 00:24:26,006 Moments like that where I'd realize 416 00:24:26,089 --> 00:24:28,842 I didn't have to separate my selves. 417 00:24:29,926 --> 00:24:32,220 I think half of the reason that I liked performing 418 00:24:32,304 --> 00:24:35,140 was making all of the costumes and the sets. 419 00:24:35,807 --> 00:24:40,145 And I started doing more, like, "Why don't I do, like, Pegasus drag? 420 00:24:40,270 --> 00:24:44,191 Or hot dog drag?" So, my costumes were getting more elaborate. 421 00:24:45,484 --> 00:24:47,235 That a little bit fulfilled the creativity, 422 00:24:47,319 --> 00:24:48,904 but I always had some version 423 00:24:48,987 --> 00:24:51,531 of a studio where I was making other things on the side. 424 00:24:52,782 --> 00:24:56,369 I was making furniture and these kind of... [laughs] 425 00:24:56,786 --> 00:25:00,749 ...elaborately fabricated cast epoxy toilet seats. 426 00:25:00,832 --> 00:25:02,667 But they sold in galleries. 427 00:25:03,585 --> 00:25:05,462 They were 400-dollar toilet seats. 428 00:25:05,837 --> 00:25:09,174 But it was really important to me that people put them on their toilets. 429 00:25:10,383 --> 00:25:13,970 That was the first thing that I considered putting into mass production. 430 00:25:14,304 --> 00:25:17,849 And then I realized that epoxy goes nowhere. 431 00:25:18,016 --> 00:25:22,395 It'll be here for so many thousands of years after I am dead. 432 00:25:23,438 --> 00:25:28,068 We're burning through non-sustainable objects faster and faster. 433 00:25:28,485 --> 00:25:32,072 So, I'm very careful about what I put into the world. 434 00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:43,375 So, with Critter, the stage we are at now is 435 00:25:43,458 --> 00:25:45,961 I'm starting to develop it and thinking about materials, 436 00:25:46,211 --> 00:25:48,964 and have talked to a couple of different companies 437 00:25:49,130 --> 00:25:52,551 about how they might want to develop and market it. 438 00:25:53,635 --> 00:25:56,388 I imagine it'll be a combination of different materials: 439 00:25:56,471 --> 00:25:59,432 wood and some kind of soft plush sorts of things, 440 00:25:59,516 --> 00:26:02,352 as well as some probably rigid components. 441 00:26:02,435 --> 00:26:06,064 And then for the plug-ins, or the doodads, as I've been calling them, 442 00:26:06,147 --> 00:26:07,691 these are more of a sketch model. 443 00:26:07,774 --> 00:26:10,777 They're just, like, whatever cardboard I had laying around, 444 00:26:10,986 --> 00:26:14,114 um, hot glue and tape to hold things together. 445 00:26:14,197 --> 00:26:18,034 So, really quick ways to figure out how they'll work. 446 00:26:18,118 --> 00:26:22,998 Like, this can be both a robot claw and a foot and maybe a moon. 447 00:26:23,915 --> 00:26:28,003 [Tovah] Any toy could be turned into a non-open-ended toy. 448 00:26:30,672 --> 00:26:35,218 The way I see it working against the child is that it says to them, 449 00:26:35,302 --> 00:26:37,596 "Either you do it right or you do it wrong." 450 00:26:37,679 --> 00:26:40,682 If you feel like you're not good at something, you just retreat. 451 00:26:40,765 --> 00:26:43,977 Children are curious. They want to engage with the world, 452 00:26:44,060 --> 00:26:47,439 and you give them open-ended toys, they're much happier. 453 00:26:48,982 --> 00:26:51,610 -[Cas] This is one-third scale model. -[Tovah] Right. 454 00:26:51,818 --> 00:26:53,653 And this is a three-year-old. 455 00:26:54,904 --> 00:26:56,531 [Cas] I'll take the prototype 456 00:26:56,990 --> 00:26:59,409 and give it to kids, 457 00:26:59,492 --> 00:27:02,662 teachers, parents, whoever would have some expertise, 458 00:27:02,746 --> 00:27:05,665 and, of course, they always have really helpful input. 459 00:27:06,207 --> 00:27:08,585 [Tovah] From a three-year-old's point of view-- 460 00:27:08,668 --> 00:27:10,920 -[Cas] I hadn't thought about that. -Well, you can peek in. 461 00:27:11,004 --> 00:27:14,466 -Yeah. Yeah. -And children like to see or peek. 462 00:27:14,549 --> 00:27:17,177 You know, "Are my things in there?" Plus, I can open it and peek. 463 00:27:18,094 --> 00:27:21,681 [Cas] I didn't think about that, which could be really fun with color, right? 464 00:27:21,765 --> 00:27:23,808 -If the things inside of it... -Are colored. 465 00:27:23,892 --> 00:27:24,768 Like, somehow... 466 00:27:24,851 --> 00:27:26,770 -Or if even the insides of the... -Even if... 467 00:27:26,853 --> 00:27:30,607 That's what I was thinking. Or even if the inside of this has color. 468 00:27:30,690 --> 00:27:31,858 -Yeah. -So they can... 469 00:27:31,983 --> 00:27:33,276 Like, if this were... 470 00:27:33,818 --> 00:27:34,986 Right. We could kind of color 471 00:27:35,070 --> 00:27:36,529 -the insides of the... -Yeah. 472 00:27:36,780 --> 00:27:40,784 [Tovah] When I saw it, I thought, "Mailbox or birdhouse?" 473 00:27:41,201 --> 00:27:44,704 But the more we talked about it, the more I could see, 474 00:27:44,788 --> 00:27:47,207 “Oh, there's so many possibilities with it." 475 00:27:47,415 --> 00:27:51,544 It's that it says a child could take this and do whatever they want with it. 476 00:27:52,128 --> 00:27:55,548 Says to the child, "Your ideas are really important." Right? 477 00:27:55,632 --> 00:27:57,425 'Cause if you've created something 478 00:27:57,550 --> 00:28:01,054 and it was your ideas and now you carried them out, then it's yours. 479 00:28:01,429 --> 00:28:04,140 [Cas] Here's a child activist mobile. 480 00:28:04,224 --> 00:28:05,475 [chuckles] 481 00:28:05,809 --> 00:28:07,018 It's a megaphone. 482 00:28:07,811 --> 00:28:11,439 [Cas] Design is kind of my tool for activism, in a way. 483 00:28:11,731 --> 00:28:14,776 I find myself in big box stores. 484 00:28:14,984 --> 00:28:18,279 There's, like, the pink aisle and the blue aisle. It's infuriating. 485 00:28:18,363 --> 00:28:19,656 It makes no sense. 486 00:28:20,281 --> 00:28:22,784 There are children who like pink and children who like blue. 487 00:28:22,867 --> 00:28:26,037 Why we've assigned that to boys and girls is absurd. 488 00:28:26,329 --> 00:28:30,875 It's just not how children... are, or it is how they wind up being, 489 00:28:30,959 --> 00:28:33,044 because that's what... the options that they're given. 490 00:28:33,461 --> 00:28:36,089 [male voiceover] Introducing the new GI Joe Adventure Team. 491 00:28:36,256 --> 00:28:38,341 Five rugged men with lifelike hair. 492 00:28:38,425 --> 00:28:42,011 She changed it ten times, and she wants it curly again. 493 00:28:42,095 --> 00:28:44,514 -Better fix Ken a sandwich. -[both giggling] 494 00:28:45,390 --> 00:28:48,893 [Cas] It's important to me to have some positive impact, 495 00:28:49,227 --> 00:28:53,022 in particular, when I see things that I struggled with in childhood 496 00:28:53,106 --> 00:28:54,899 that I don't think were necessary. 497 00:28:57,152 --> 00:29:00,613 I probably started having an awareness of gender, 498 00:29:00,822 --> 00:29:02,323 it was maybe around third grade. 499 00:29:02,699 --> 00:29:05,702 I knew that, you know, there were boys and girls and I was a girl. 500 00:29:05,785 --> 00:29:08,747 But there was a point at which I was meant to stop... 501 00:29:09,456 --> 00:29:12,292 To start... Well, stop being a tomboy. 502 00:29:13,460 --> 00:29:17,589 Simultaneously, my dad was not happy with me 503 00:29:17,672 --> 00:29:19,591 not growing out of a tomboy. 504 00:29:20,008 --> 00:29:22,677 And he was in charge of a lot of the back-to-school shopping. 505 00:29:22,761 --> 00:29:25,930 He caught me sneaking over into the boys' section to get the clothes 506 00:29:26,014 --> 00:29:29,184 to bring them into the girls' section. I thought he wouldn't figure that out. 507 00:29:29,267 --> 00:29:31,394 And then he just was not going to buy me clothes. 508 00:29:31,478 --> 00:29:33,396 I needed to get over it. I needed to grow up. 509 00:29:34,105 --> 00:29:37,442 And so that was the first time that I realized it was going to be an issue. 510 00:29:39,903 --> 00:29:42,197 Then I started, I think, noticing in other places 511 00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:44,908 where men and women were treated differently 512 00:29:44,991 --> 00:29:48,328 and that the expectations were starting to get really inconvenient. 513 00:29:49,871 --> 00:29:53,208 It felt like there was a set of rules that 514 00:29:53,291 --> 00:29:57,462 if the other girls didn't follow, those wouldn't be expected of me. 515 00:29:57,545 --> 00:29:59,756 So, I was, like, a little bit mad and disappointed 516 00:29:59,839 --> 00:30:02,592 at them for following the rules of wearing dresses 517 00:30:02,675 --> 00:30:04,385 and screaming when you see a worm. 518 00:30:06,888 --> 00:30:09,933 But I think it's always been a huge presence. 519 00:30:11,601 --> 00:30:15,271 It's a lens through which I have no choice but to see the world. 520 00:30:18,650 --> 00:30:21,236 [female interviewer] And did your dad, like... What happened there? 521 00:30:21,319 --> 00:30:23,613 No, he never came around. He's still mad. 522 00:30:23,696 --> 00:30:24,948 [laughing] 523 00:30:26,324 --> 00:30:30,078 No. It's, um... I mean, if only that were our only issue. 524 00:30:34,374 --> 00:30:35,500 I think... 525 00:30:36,084 --> 00:30:40,630 the fact that I'm a feminist and my gender is a bigger issue for him 526 00:30:40,713 --> 00:30:42,382 than the fact that I'm queer. 527 00:30:44,300 --> 00:30:45,593 I... [stammers] 528 00:30:46,511 --> 00:30:48,763 ...don't need to psychoanalyze him, but we don't talk. 529 00:30:48,847 --> 00:30:51,474 We haven't... We periodically would go 530 00:30:52,058 --> 00:30:54,352 a year, a couple years without speaking... 531 00:30:54,853 --> 00:30:58,773 Um, but I was recently officially disowned. 532 00:31:00,567 --> 00:31:03,903 At this point, we're, like, going on 25 years of therapy. 533 00:31:04,153 --> 00:31:08,908 So, I can live without a relationship that just makes me feel crappy. 534 00:31:18,001 --> 00:31:21,546 [Cas] I didn't know that Alesdair was... 535 00:31:22,088 --> 00:31:25,842 something that I could have, let alone even want to have. 536 00:31:26,217 --> 00:31:28,720 I understood vaguely when people talked about 537 00:31:29,220 --> 00:31:33,016 their primary person and love and true love and whatnot. 538 00:31:33,099 --> 00:31:36,269 And, of course, I've had many versions of lots and lots of love. 539 00:31:36,936 --> 00:31:39,856 Um... but this one's pretty stinking good. 540 00:31:41,024 --> 00:31:41,858 Yeah. 541 00:31:42,775 --> 00:31:44,861 She invited me to this party after a month had gone by, 542 00:31:44,944 --> 00:31:46,696 and I thought, "What do I have to lose?" 543 00:31:46,946 --> 00:31:50,283 And I immediately came in and she took a blowtorch, 544 00:31:50,617 --> 00:31:52,410 -and was like-- -I was trying to impress him. 545 00:31:52,619 --> 00:31:56,372 "Let me show you the bubbles in the pond." 546 00:31:56,915 --> 00:31:58,708 And so she comes out with the blowtorch 547 00:31:58,791 --> 00:32:04,213 and just starts blowtorching the frozen... brook, being like, "Isn't this cool?" 548 00:32:04,297 --> 00:32:06,966 -And, to be fair, it was pretty cool. -It was cool. 549 00:32:15,099 --> 00:32:17,060 -[Cas] After I came out to you... -[Gerri] Uh-huh. 550 00:32:17,268 --> 00:32:22,106 [Cas] ...the initial conversation was... was hard and didn't go well and... 551 00:32:22,231 --> 00:32:23,483 -[arrow twangs] -[Cas] You know-- 552 00:32:23,566 --> 00:32:26,110 [Gerri] It probably felt for a while that it was gonna be something 553 00:32:26,194 --> 00:32:27,779 that was not gonna be forever. 554 00:32:28,529 --> 00:32:31,449 I'm like, "Really?" You didn't think I was gonna stick? 555 00:32:31,532 --> 00:32:33,826 So specifically this one didn't... 556 00:32:33,910 --> 00:32:36,871 That I was going to grow out of it, and, like, how could you... 557 00:32:36,955 --> 00:32:39,374 Really, Mom? At some point, you called me up out of the blue 558 00:32:39,958 --> 00:32:43,211 and you said, "I was just watching the news and in Sacramento..." 559 00:32:43,753 --> 00:32:47,423 And I remember you saying it was a gay protest, and I was like, 560 00:32:47,507 --> 00:32:49,509 "We call those Gay Pride parades." 561 00:32:49,592 --> 00:32:51,552 And you said, "But there was a woman 562 00:32:51,636 --> 00:32:53,888 carrying a sign that said, ‘I love and support...’" 563 00:32:55,932 --> 00:32:56,766 [sniffles] 564 00:32:56,849 --> 00:32:59,727 It said, "I love and support my lesbian daughter." [sniffles] 565 00:32:59,936 --> 00:33:02,730 And you said, "And I realized that, 566 00:33:02,939 --> 00:33:07,318 of course, I love, but I haven't really supported you as a lesbian daughter." 567 00:33:07,402 --> 00:33:08,403 [chuckles and sniffles] 568 00:33:08,486 --> 00:33:10,363 I remember this conversation. 569 00:33:10,446 --> 00:33:13,199 And you apologized, and, um... 570 00:33:14,701 --> 00:33:17,161 I was... That was... It felt like a big moment. 571 00:33:17,245 --> 00:33:18,079 Yeah. 572 00:33:18,746 --> 00:33:21,124 [Cas] And it made my life much easier, in fact. 573 00:33:25,086 --> 00:33:27,380 As I've been able to... 574 00:33:28,256 --> 00:33:34,262 have more control over being in places and being surrounded by people 575 00:33:34,387 --> 00:33:36,764 that are supportive of who I am 576 00:33:36,848 --> 00:33:39,684 and who I can contribute to a community of people 577 00:33:39,767 --> 00:33:42,103 who support and love each other... 578 00:33:42,770 --> 00:33:46,149 I have less and less tolerance for places that aren't like that. 579 00:33:46,232 --> 00:33:47,275 Come here. 580 00:33:48,484 --> 00:33:50,069 [Cas] In my mind, I want... 581 00:33:50,987 --> 00:33:52,655 every... Like, I want language, 582 00:33:52,780 --> 00:33:57,035 I want gender, I want all of those things to work like a basic building block. 583 00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:02,165 A basic building block, that can be 584 00:34:02,415 --> 00:34:05,877 a car or a whale or a hat. 585 00:34:08,212 --> 00:34:10,131 To have the malleability 586 00:34:10,631 --> 00:34:13,426 that that has as kind of a placeholder 587 00:34:14,093 --> 00:34:17,055 for our imagination to kind of build from. 588 00:34:17,472 --> 00:34:19,849 So, who can tell me what, um... 589 00:34:20,141 --> 00:34:22,894 what an inventor is? What's an inventor? 590 00:34:24,645 --> 00:34:28,232 [Cas] The reason that I design for children is I'm designing for people. 591 00:34:29,317 --> 00:34:30,860 These are the people that are gonna, 592 00:34:30,943 --> 00:34:33,863 like, make the world suck or not suck. Right? 593 00:34:34,655 --> 00:34:36,532 Good toys make good people. 594 00:34:36,699 --> 00:34:38,576 And I really believe in that. 595 00:34:39,285 --> 00:34:41,579 Who's got a question... Who's got a question for Cas? 596 00:34:41,913 --> 00:34:45,249 What gave you the idea of making Rigamajigs? 597 00:34:46,042 --> 00:34:47,835 [Cas] Well, I noticed 598 00:34:48,002 --> 00:34:51,464 and I know that you all are capable 599 00:34:51,547 --> 00:34:54,675 of building things that are big and exciting, 600 00:34:54,759 --> 00:34:57,261 and that you have ideas of what you want to build 601 00:34:57,345 --> 00:34:59,972 in such a way that you would get to choose what you were making 602 00:35:00,056 --> 00:35:02,141 rather than me telling you what to make. 603 00:35:03,810 --> 00:35:07,522 [Cas] Rigamajig has been on the market now for five years. 604 00:35:08,231 --> 00:35:10,733 It translated more to being in the classroom 605 00:35:10,817 --> 00:35:13,027 to teach curricular needs. 606 00:35:14,278 --> 00:35:15,613 But also collaboration. 607 00:35:15,696 --> 00:35:18,908 There's a lot of collaborative opportunities with materials that big. 608 00:35:18,991 --> 00:35:22,078 It's designed in such a way that children need each other. 609 00:35:22,328 --> 00:35:26,958 You have to get somebody to hold this end while you're screwing in 610 00:35:27,333 --> 00:35:29,252 the bracket that's over there. 611 00:35:30,044 --> 00:35:32,046 Well, they don't know what's going to come out of it, 612 00:35:32,130 --> 00:35:34,132 because hopefully, in its best case, it's open-ended. 613 00:35:34,215 --> 00:35:36,509 So, nobody knows what the children are gonna build. 614 00:35:36,843 --> 00:35:40,346 Nobody knows what kind of interpersonal dynamics are gonna come out, 615 00:35:40,429 --> 00:35:42,306 nobody knows where it might go. 616 00:35:42,849 --> 00:35:45,852 Of course, the children, I don't think, experience that as vulnerability. 617 00:35:45,935 --> 00:35:48,646 I think, for the kids, that's all just play, it's all unfolding. 618 00:35:50,857 --> 00:35:55,444 My biggest challenges are other people's perceived rules. 619 00:35:55,736 --> 00:35:58,906 Our overarching perception of risk 620 00:35:59,031 --> 00:36:02,493 and what is an acceptable level of risk for children in play. 621 00:36:04,412 --> 00:36:07,915 It's hard to remember that those are not real. 622 00:36:08,207 --> 00:36:09,333 [chuckles] 623 00:36:10,543 --> 00:36:13,921 Children can have a big heavy board and not get hurt. 624 00:36:15,089 --> 00:36:17,091 [teacher] What do we say to Cas for inventing Rigamajig? 625 00:36:17,175 --> 00:36:18,926 [children] Thank you! 626 00:36:19,010 --> 00:36:22,597 Thank you for playing, and thank you so much for sharing with us. 627 00:36:23,764 --> 00:36:26,517 Prior to the Fast Company article, 628 00:36:26,601 --> 00:36:28,811 I think Cas was a little-known secret. 629 00:36:30,021 --> 00:36:33,608 Mostly through social media, all of a sudden, she became known. 630 00:36:33,941 --> 00:36:35,776 Rigamajig became known. 631 00:36:36,068 --> 00:36:38,237 And so we had people contacting us 632 00:36:38,321 --> 00:36:40,239 that we had never done outreach to. 633 00:36:40,323 --> 00:36:42,325 [cell phone ringing] 634 00:36:45,828 --> 00:36:48,748 [Cas] A couple years ago, someone contacted me and said... 635 00:36:48,831 --> 00:36:51,042 [woman, over phone] "I've seen your stuff in use in China. 636 00:36:51,125 --> 00:36:53,502 It's a region of schools that I work with. 637 00:36:53,628 --> 00:36:57,590 They have a couple of prototypes of something similar to Rigamajig. 638 00:36:57,715 --> 00:37:01,093 Basically, long story short, you're being knocked off in China. 639 00:37:01,219 --> 00:37:03,387 But not by us, 'cause we'd like to work with you." 640 00:37:04,472 --> 00:37:07,099 [Cas] And so, my... 641 00:37:07,350 --> 00:37:12,021 my first instinct, hearing that Rigamajig was being used in some schools there, 642 00:37:12,104 --> 00:37:13,940 I thought, "That's much better than 643 00:37:14,023 --> 00:37:16,901 whatever stereotype of Chinese schools I had." 644 00:37:17,401 --> 00:37:20,821 Then I also thought, “Well, let me see what they've done with it, 645 00:37:20,905 --> 00:37:24,242 because I'm sure they've changed it slightly, and maybe they improved it.” 646 00:37:24,325 --> 00:37:28,871 And she just started showing me these images of what they call Anji Play. 647 00:37:29,664 --> 00:37:36,337 Kids building elaborate structures and leaping off of barrels. 648 00:37:36,837 --> 00:37:39,465 And I was speechless. 649 00:37:40,174 --> 00:37:42,718 At that point, I had been working for over a decade 650 00:37:42,802 --> 00:37:45,972 in playground design and material design. 651 00:37:46,055 --> 00:37:49,600 And, to some extent, like, I had kind of stopped trying 652 00:37:49,684 --> 00:37:52,228 to do something that ideal. 653 00:37:52,311 --> 00:37:54,772 I knew it was possible that children could do all those things. 654 00:37:54,855 --> 00:37:58,818 I didn't know it was possible to let them, 655 00:37:58,901 --> 00:38:02,196 because of rules and liability. 656 00:38:03,030 --> 00:38:06,367 The idea that Rigamajig was being knocked off was really disappointing. 657 00:38:06,701 --> 00:38:10,162 And Doug, my business manager, was like, "We have to stop them." 658 00:38:10,329 --> 00:38:11,998 But the person who was making it 659 00:38:12,081 --> 00:38:13,916 was different than the person who was buying it. 660 00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:19,130 And so we realized that we could be chasing patent infringers 661 00:38:19,213 --> 00:38:22,591 or we could try to partner with the schools. 662 00:38:22,842 --> 00:38:24,844 [children squealing and chattering] 663 00:38:34,061 --> 00:38:35,813 [speaks Chinese] 664 00:38:35,896 --> 00:38:37,648 [laughing] How's it going? 665 00:38:38,441 --> 00:38:39,275 Yeah? 666 00:38:39,442 --> 00:38:41,444 You're regrouping to go play? 667 00:38:41,819 --> 00:38:43,696 [children chattering] 668 00:38:48,951 --> 00:38:50,161 Oh! [laughing] 669 00:38:52,079 --> 00:38:53,247 Okay! 670 00:38:57,418 --> 00:38:58,961 After you, my friends. 671 00:39:02,131 --> 00:39:04,842 [Cas] Very quickly, I went to China and I learned that 672 00:39:05,009 --> 00:39:07,511 in this region, there were 120 schools 673 00:39:07,595 --> 00:39:10,431 and 14,000 children using this model. 674 00:39:12,516 --> 00:39:13,934 [children chattering] 675 00:39:14,185 --> 00:39:15,436 [opera music playing] 676 00:39:16,103 --> 00:39:17,563 [Cas chuckling] 677 00:39:23,027 --> 00:39:24,945 They're outside for two hours a day, 678 00:39:25,029 --> 00:39:27,823 they have these incredible assortment of materials... 679 00:39:29,825 --> 00:39:31,994 building with these giant blocks, 680 00:39:32,870 --> 00:39:34,663 leaping off of ladders. 681 00:39:36,415 --> 00:39:40,544 They decide what they're playing with, they bring it out, they put it away. 682 00:39:41,003 --> 00:39:44,006 The teachers are really brilliant observers. 683 00:39:44,465 --> 00:39:48,094 I shifted from the initial protective shock, 684 00:39:48,177 --> 00:39:50,388 and I immediately knew that I needed to 685 00:39:50,471 --> 00:39:54,475 be involved and learn from what Ms. Cheng was doing in Anji Play. 686 00:39:56,310 --> 00:39:57,937 Ms. Cheng, she's the founder 687 00:39:58,020 --> 00:40:02,566 and had kind of been developing Anji Play over the course of 16 years. 688 00:40:02,650 --> 00:40:05,027 And Ms. Cheng is... is a genius. 689 00:40:06,153 --> 00:40:10,241 [speaking in Chinese] When talking about the relationship 690 00:40:10,366 --> 00:40:12,952 between designers and children, 691 00:40:13,035 --> 00:40:16,539 we had a lot in common. 692 00:40:16,622 --> 00:40:18,457 So, we felt like old friends. 693 00:40:18,541 --> 00:40:21,293 So, we asked Cas 694 00:40:21,377 --> 00:40:23,712 to help us 695 00:40:24,338 --> 00:40:27,133 with standardization of Anji Play. 696 00:40:29,260 --> 00:40:32,096 [Cas] We have been working to bring Anji Play to the US 697 00:40:32,221 --> 00:40:34,265 and the rest of the world. 698 00:40:34,515 --> 00:40:37,268 I suppose, to some extent, I'm the design director. 699 00:40:37,852 --> 00:40:40,104 Today, Ms. Cheng pointed out that the children love 700 00:40:40,187 --> 00:40:42,440 playing with things that are off-balance. 701 00:40:42,731 --> 00:40:46,402 And so, I'm thinking about some new ways that some of the materials or things 702 00:40:46,485 --> 00:40:48,696 could be compatible with the larger system, 703 00:40:48,946 --> 00:40:52,533 and bring in ways that they can experiment with balance more. 704 00:40:52,783 --> 00:40:57,246 The unstable... I saw children put the A-frame 705 00:40:57,329 --> 00:41:00,499 or the double ladder onto one of the barrels. 706 00:41:00,708 --> 00:41:04,378 Yep. Would it be good if the slats went all the way through? 707 00:41:04,462 --> 00:41:08,132 The same way that it might line up with the climbing cubes? 708 00:41:08,841 --> 00:41:10,801 -‘Cause that... that would be-- -Yeah. 709 00:41:10,926 --> 00:41:14,305 Also, a funny kind of... I would imagine if it's going this way... 710 00:41:14,805 --> 00:41:16,182 [laughter] 711 00:41:16,390 --> 00:41:19,852 And this would be... Actually, this would be a good teeter-totter. 712 00:41:20,769 --> 00:41:23,481 The driving ethos is what we're curious about. 713 00:41:24,190 --> 00:41:26,025 And that's such a big shift 714 00:41:26,358 --> 00:41:27,818 from "What did you learn?" 715 00:41:27,902 --> 00:41:30,154 Right? That there's an outcome, 716 00:41:30,237 --> 00:41:32,531 that there's a thing that is to be learned, 717 00:41:32,615 --> 00:41:34,533 that we know what can be learned, 718 00:41:35,034 --> 00:41:37,995 and therefore you're out to look for it. 719 00:41:38,621 --> 00:41:41,332 I was watching these girls, this tire course, 720 00:41:41,415 --> 00:41:43,459 and they pull the tire up there, 721 00:41:44,084 --> 00:41:45,961 and then they roll it down the plank, 722 00:41:46,712 --> 00:41:48,964 and it goes through the... the tube 723 00:41:49,798 --> 00:41:52,134 and then lands into the cube. 724 00:41:52,927 --> 00:41:55,596 And as soon as it got in, then, of course, like, 725 00:41:55,763 --> 00:41:58,807 what's the point? So, then they keep making it more and more complicated. 726 00:41:59,767 --> 00:42:01,060 'Cause easy is boring. 727 00:42:02,686 --> 00:42:08,859 I do have hope that if you show schools where this really, really works 728 00:42:08,943 --> 00:42:12,279 and then you get another school to try it and another school to try it, 729 00:42:12,363 --> 00:42:15,407 that you can get this kind of contagion effect. 730 00:42:16,408 --> 00:42:18,160 Because you see it in the children. 731 00:42:18,702 --> 00:42:22,456 You see their joy, you see them learning, you see them growing. 732 00:42:24,708 --> 00:42:27,336 It's not just about children, that's truly about humanity. 733 00:42:27,795 --> 00:42:28,712 So... 734 00:42:29,255 --> 00:42:32,550 I'm going to be hopeful that we can get, like, a little bit going, 735 00:42:32,633 --> 00:42:35,928 and, you know, a little bit can add to a little more of Anji. 736 00:42:38,639 --> 00:42:42,851 [Cas] I think that design is critical to our future, and the world. 737 00:42:43,310 --> 00:42:46,230 And all of my designs, whether it's Rigamajig 738 00:42:46,313 --> 00:42:49,400 and the occasional playground design and project that I do, 739 00:42:49,483 --> 00:42:52,361 Geemo and then with Anji Play, 740 00:42:52,861 --> 00:42:57,408 all of them are about empowering thinking outside of the archetype. 741 00:43:00,786 --> 00:43:04,081 I saw it as an opportunity to have an impact on the future. 742 00:43:04,206 --> 00:43:05,457 I don't... It's funny. 743 00:43:05,749 --> 00:43:08,127 I don't... It's not that I like kids. 744 00:43:08,210 --> 00:43:11,088 I don't dislike kids. I like people. 745 00:43:11,672 --> 00:43:12,715 I am... 746 00:43:13,299 --> 00:43:16,093 I’m sure I'm going to get some pushback from that, but it's true. 747 00:43:17,636 --> 00:43:20,639 And so, in my mind... [chuckles] 748 00:43:21,515 --> 00:43:24,351 ...if we can give kids the tools to build confidence 749 00:43:24,435 --> 00:43:26,061 and have agency and understand 750 00:43:26,145 --> 00:43:31,859 how to be creative, empathetic, good people, then I thoroughly believe 751 00:43:31,942 --> 00:43:34,987 that they will make a better future for all of us. 752 00:43:36,447 --> 00:43:39,783 If we can play together, then we can live together.