{"id":395,"date":"2015-05-06T14:35:36","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T14:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fusion360.wpengine.com\/perry-the-inventor-gives-kids-lots-of-ways-to-safely-make-mistakes\/"},"modified":"2020-11-25T11:02:16","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T19:02:16","slug":"perry-the-inventor-gives-kids-lots-of-ways-to-safely-make-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/perry-the-inventor-gives-kids-lots-of-ways-to-safely-make-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Perry the Inventor Gives Kids “Lots of Ways to Safely Make Mistakes”"},"content":{"rendered":"

When he was a kid, Perry Kaye \u2014 known to all as Perry the Inventor \u2014 preferred playing and inventing to sitting in school. \u201cSchool beats your natural human, creative instincts out of you,\u201d he says. He and his friends would play with firecrackers and mousetraps, hit rocks with sticks, and climb around the ravine in their neighborhood. They explored. They learned<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To give kids that experience of discovery and foster their creative instincts, the Florida-based entrepreneur and his wife, Teri, founded Perry Teri Toys<\/a> and introduced the\u00a0ShapeSHARK<\/a>, a colored marker that allows children to cut paper into shapes simply by drawing them.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learning Better by Making a Hundred Mistakes<\/h2>\n

Kaye thinks that all too often children are taught to look for one right answer, rather than exploring different possibilities and using their creativity to come up with new solutions. He remembers helping his son\u2019s high school science club work on a project for a contest: \u201cThey were so afraid of making a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"hand_holding.PNG\"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"shapeshark_green.PNG\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In fact, though, making mistakes is the best way to learn. As he puts it, “You learn when you make a hundred mistakes\u201d trying to solve a particular problem. He believes that kids\u2019 toys should reflect that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need to have toys that help kids think, create, and build,\u201d Kaye says. \u201cKids really need lots of ways to safely make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Lifelong Inventor with a Realist Streak<\/h2>\n

Coming up with new ideas for inventions and testing them out is deeply engrained for Kaye. \u201cI’ve always been inventing,\u201d he says. His idea journals go back decades, and his mother has an audiotape from when he was less than five years old in which he talks about inventions. In 1988, he founded Gizmo Enterprises<\/a>, and he has done projects through it even when he was working in unrelated fields during the day. Over the years, Kaye has earned more than 50 US and Foreign patents and written many articles for Inventors Digest. Along the way, he became an expert in CAD software and kitted out a machine shop where he could make parts for himself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"face.PNG\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Kaye\u2019s experience, amateur inventors tend to be dreamers, falling in love with an idea and imagining that it can be implemented. Professionals, by contrast, find a real-world need to address and then do the work required to get their ideas adopted. “Too many inventors fall in love with the idea,\u201d he says. \u201cPro inventors fall in love with the idea that others<\/em> fall in love with.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today Perry Teri Toys has more than 100 concepts in the works, but they\u2019re careful about which ones they bring to market. Kaye learned long ago that you can\u2019t rely on what people say<\/em> about an invention, because many people reflexively want to be nice. Instead, he watches how people actually interact with it; if they pick it up and immediately start using it or fight over the one prototype, you know you\u2019re onto something.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Magic of Cutting and Drawing at the Same Time<\/h2>\n

That\u2019s exactly how it has been with the ShapeSHARK. Children pick it up and start playing with it right away. They draw a dog in 2D, but because the shape is cut out at the same time it is colored, the dog immediately becomes a 3D object in their hands. Next thing you know, they are building a little world around it by drawing flowers and buildings as the dog\u2019s surroundings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"shapeshark_steps.png\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kaye believes it\u2019s a simple, inexpensive way to get kids to use their imagination. \u201cPaper is a great medium,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause it\u2019s cheap, easy to clean up, and it lets kids work with a physical material in the real world. . . . And if you make a mistake, who cares? It\u2019s just a piece of paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fusion + 3D Printing = Rapid Development<\/h2>\n

When Kaye got the idea for the marker, he set a timer to see how fast he could make a prototype from materials he had on hand. His many years of experience in product development didn\u2019t fail him: he was done in 14 minutes and 28 seconds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He explains that he builds one of a product to see if he likes it. If he does, then he builds ten so he can begin to see how to manufacture it. Using Fusion 360 along with 3D printing enables Kaye to do rapid prototyping and answer \u201cWill it work?\u201d for each design decision.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"6.PNG\"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"7.PNG\"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"9.PNG\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Having spent decades working with CAD, Kaye thinks that Fusion is a great marriage of sculpting and traditional parametric modeling \u2014 both of which you need if you want to design products that are ready for manufacture but also look and feel cool. \u201cIt’s kind of a dream come true for people looking to use CAD,\u201d he says. \u201cFusion lets us do all that imagination inside the machine. . . . We’ll be testing the prototype before most people would have the final drawing.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kaye is wrapping up the Kickstarter campaign for ShapeSHARK, in preparation for a full product launch later this year. After that, he\u2019ll keep developing other concepts for toys that kids will want to pick up and explore as eagerly as he used to climb in the ravine with his buddies \u2014 and as passionately as he now pursues inventing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perry the Inventor is helping to teach kids to use their imaginations and not be afraid to make mistakes. Check out how the ShapeSHARK is going from Fusion 360 to a store near you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fusion","dhig-theme--light"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPerry the Inventor Gives Kids "Lots of Ways to Safely Make Mistakes" | Fusion Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Perry the Inventor is helping to teach kids to use their imaginations and not be afraid to make mistakes. 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