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Focus on Bloomberg Radio. A children's toy that you don't have to log onto or plug into that blends creativity, spatial literacy, and architectural principles, completely made in America and developed by a husband and wife team over twenty five years. Does it sound good, well, then listen to this. We're welcoming now Mike and Heather a chair. They're the creators
of lux Blocks. Welcome to you both. Good afternoon. So let's start with you, Mike, because I know you would come up a lot of with a lot of ideas when you're developing these blocks, and Heather would come home from work and say, Mike, it doesn't quite work. So is Lux Blocks? Well? How does it work? What makes it special? What makes it special is that when kids snap these things together, they have hinges in them so they move, so basically you can It's hard to talk
about a visual thing on the radio. But when you sat together and make a sheet that moves like sheet metal would move, right, But the minute you fold it, it's corrugating like sheet metal would do, like on the wing of an airplane. So kids are deriving structure and rigidity to the same way an architecture and engineer would not, like a bricklayer. Right, you're not piling heavy objects on top each other's stick. You're you're getting lightweight strength through ideas.
So the kids have we call it having access to nature's principles success exactly how cells and plants and animals are put together through corrugation. Now I understand that there are no printed instructions tell us about that. Yeah, well, you know, and that's that was always an issue with our company. We really wanted to be an open ended, you know, old school toy, and we've got a little
bit of pushbacks because of that. So we have printed some instructions online and we have forty two videos online professionally done with kids showing how to build with the block. Uh. The point was we these aren't kids like other toys. They'll say this is the Star Wars staying or the Harry Potter thing. We really wanted kids to make things and tem apart and make more things because the block really doesntstruct you and guide you in a really creative,
beautiful way. And that was the process we want to involve on kids play with the block. So Heather tell us about the patented hinge, because again I understand that you were developing this. You guys came up with the hinge and Mike initially wanted to have except you said no, no, no no, no, no no no, it has to be part of the blocks. What is it and what's so special about it? Well? Um, actually, if you saw what the
prototype process was like, you'd find it most amusing. It actually took us, when we really sat down to make the block, uh, almost four years with the three D printer, trying lots of different designs before we actually wound up with the final design. Um. We actually had a German astrophysicist come by dropped by the house one day through some German friends, and and you know, he was a big proponent of of a separate hinge connector with six
different points in this sort of thing. And what what the more you try to put into it, the more complicated it became and it had less of a textural appeal, and for me, it was very important that it be also intuitive. So I was the one who was insistent in the entire time that the connector be on the block itself, because I wanted that instant gratification that I've
snapped two blocks together. And the hinge was not originally conceived in the process that it was something that developed later on the process, because we even had comb like connectors and that sort of thing. If you saw at our home the number of prototypes we did on our three D printer, you you'd really find it most amusing, because we have tubs and tubs of ideas that didn't quite make it. I'm wondering who came up with the
atomic optimization principle? Oh, that'd be all right. Tell us what is the atomic optimization principle and how does it apply to lux blocks. Well, the idea was is that it goes back to the Greek that they thought that um, it's got there was an intelligent, you know, deity that made the universe, that that the god would have had a very simple building blocks that would have made everything right.
It's a very old idea from democratis the Adam idea, And well that was when we wanted to make this block. We went down to first principles. We look looked at how nature put itself together. So there was a lot of thinking that wins this block. We look at the geometry of Buck, Mr. Fuller and Einstein and so the block Uh, the single square, but there's all only one piece. If you if you lose a piece, unlike Lego, you can still build what everyone because they're all the same piece.
It's all the same square looking piece. But they generate rules when you start putting these things together. These little square blocks make spears, they make cells and molecules. They just build nature. And that's the atomic optimization principle that that basically, when you do have a real atomic element, you're going to build the universe. And that's what this block does. So Heather, Uh, you and your husband Mike are artists, inventors. You work for twenty five years on
these lux blocks. That's lu X and then b l o X as entrepreneurs and small business people getting off the ground. You're a hundred stores. Now what has been your challenge? What have you learned? Oh, my goodness, Threshley and close to eight hundred stores were Recently, Barnes and Noble picked us up, so we're pretty excited about that. Actually, we hit their shelves on the eleventh. So I guess I think the most important thing is at some point you do have to say stop, that's good enough, you
could keep refining. I think every artist or every inventor comes across that problem. You know you have to stop when you've you've solved the problem. At some point you know you just can't keep working. You'll never have a product. So that would be sort of a first lesson. And then the other ideas are, you know, find your audience and start with with a good audience and build from there. Um,
those would be some lessons that I've learned. Thank you very much for joining us, both Mike and Heather A Chera. They are the creators of lux Blocks. That's o u X b l o X. You're listening to taking Stock. I'm pim Fox, my co host Kathleen Hayes, and this is Bloomberg