LINO LAKES, Minn. – (April 28, 2017) – A Lino Lakes couple is about to be on national television. They created a toy for their children, and now they are presenting that toy on ABC’s new show, The Toy Box. The winner of the final episode wins the opportunity to bring their creation to market; with marketing, design and manufacturing support from Mattel.
“Maze-O is a series of square-like panels with either a wall or connector on each side,” said Dan Friedman, who created the toy with his wife Jessica.
“We jumped on Amazon, couldn’t find anything and we’re like, ‘alright, we’re going to build this ourselves,'” said Dan.
And they did just that, after they bought a 3-D printer and designed the pieces. It took about 3 hours to print one piece back in 2012, but within a few weeks they had enough to start building mazes.
“We probably went for two weeks building, so we could have a little set for the kids play with,” said Jessica.
Then in 2013, they won the Cool Idea Award from Proto Labs, where they received a manufacturing grant to start producing true prototypes of their pieces.
The recently started selling Maze-O on Amazon.
“We see Maze-O as, not only a fun toy, but its an educational toy. It teaches kids about spatial reasoning, coordination, some critical thinking. So we think this is a great toy to help teach kids and use their imagination. It’s a toy that reaches for the imagination versus, ‘here’s a toy that does one thing,'” said Dan.
In what might turn out to be their biggest break, they are appearing on the new ABC Show, The Toy Box, a competitive TV show for the best new toy on the market. The winner of the show gets a contract with Mattel, and a spot on the shelf in Toys R Us stores across the nation.
“Kids are the judges,” said Jessica. “So we put the real experts in charge of what toy Mattel is going to produce and make from it.”
Since meeting the show’s mentors, the Friedmans have made some changes to Maze-O. They changed the packaging, instructional cards, and upped the number of pieces in the set.
“Overall we have a much better product than we did when we first presented,” said Dan.
And now, they are excited to introduce Maze-O to the world, and they hope other families love it as much as they do.
“Going on the show, we knew the prize was getting in front of so many customers at Toys R Us. That would be such an amazing opportunity for Maze-O. So we are really excited for this huge opportunity to bring Maze-O to life, and really let all kids in the whole country experience Maze-O,” said Jessica.
The Friedmans were unable to disclose how well they did on the show until the show airs. Their episode of The Toy Box will air on May 5 at 7 p.m. on ABC, and you can tune in and see how they do then.
