Inside the building of a trans-disciplinary innovation platform in Istanbul, a couple of young minds are constantly creating different types of innovative toys with any stuff they could find on the desk. (Xinhua/Xu Suhui)
ISTANBUL, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- Inside the building of a trans-disciplinary innovation platform in Istanbul, a couple of young minds were constantly creating different types of innovative toys with any stuff they could find on the desk.
Plastic bottles, various empty cups, egg cartons and pinecones are among the pieces used in making vehicles, creatures and characters along with items of a toy kit.
Elif Atmaca and Ogeday Ucurum, two young Turkish entrepreneurs, have recently founded a social enterprise in partnership with Atolye, an innovation platform, and created an innovative toy kit named "Toyi."
The kit allows children to transform almost every object around them into unique toys. A water bottle can turn into a rocket, while an old box can be made a train compartment, and a swimming mask into a cute monster.
"Our initial target was to deliver Toyi kits to only disadvantaged children who were socio-economically limited in accessing toys," Atmaca told Xinhua.
But, during a research conducted with around 300 children, the duo realized that the restriction on being creative goes beyond any boundary.
"We saw that everything was planned and shaped by grown-ups, blocking the kids' imagination in a significant way," said Atmaca.
In her view, rules are set by the industry, under which children are instructed on how to play with or what toys to make. "Even with toys composed of building blocks, the final product is shown to children beforehand," she pointed out.
Atmaca and Ucurum concluded that each kid needs space where he or she can freely create, the reason why the Toyi kits come with no instructions, giving priority to open-ended free play experience.
"The entire process is left to kids' creativity, reminding parents, teachers and all grown-ups that child-led play is an excellent way for children to develop lifelong skills," explained Atmaca.
A simple kit of Toyi consists of sticks, junction parts, flexible connectors, toy body parts like feet, eyes, hands, and wheels.
The most fundamental pieces of the kit are flexible connectors, which help remove material restrictions, and "act as glue holding different objects together," Atmaca said, adding the connectors provide "a sense of boundlessness."
Toyi's creators are now considering distributing the kits to as many children as possible around the world through different international NGOs.
"We have got in contact with several refugee camps in India and Greece through various refugee community centers around the world," said Ucurum. "We are currently trying to determine how many children and how many kits are needed."
He noted that for each Toyi kit sold out, they would also donate one kit to a disadvantaged child through different partnerships around the world.
The Toyi founders are trying to encourage adults to have a free play experience with the kits as well.
"That is why the age range mentioned on Toyi kit boxes is 6-99," explained Ucurum.
"We think that each person has a strong sense of imagination, but losing that while growing up," he said, noting "we want to encourage others in the working space to play as they are working."
