These LEGO-like modular bricks help kids learn about energy and technology as they play





If you think about it, there’s a pretty visible gap between physical toys and digital toys. By physical toys, I mean games like blocks, LEGO, stuffed animals, puzzles, etc… and by digital toys, I obviously mean apps. Physical toys aim at teaching kids practical skills and motor abilities, as do digital toys, but not many toys teach children about how the physical world and digital world are connected. A toddler doesn’t know that their RC car or talking teddy bear or even the iPad they play games on, is powered by a battery. That batteries store energy that can be converted. Or that all the tech around them is just the journey of energy, from electrical to chemical, to light, sound, and data. Sure, those are complex things for a toddler to understand, but the Joul aims at helping kids be more cognizant of how the world around them works… and it does it by bridging the physical and technological toy gap.

Joul, named cleverly after the unit of energy, is a set of modular, magnetic blocks that help kids understand how energy powers their world. Comprising three types of blocks – generators, batteries, and output blocks, Joul allows kids to experiment with forms of energy and learn how it can be harnessed from different sources, stored, and used. The generator blocks help transfer mechanical, wind, and solar energy into electrical energy that gets stored in the battery blocks. The battery blocks then connect to output modules like a light or a speaker, while an optional switch module allows you to literally create a basic circuit, helping kids grasp how energy flows, and how it constantly needs to be generated because it isn’t infinite. An optional iPad app helps kids comprehend this concept further, gaining a fundamental understanding of the world of energy, and how it powers the world we live in!

The Joul is a winner of the iF Design Talent Award for the year 2020

Designers: Anna Hing, Fabian Böttcher, Soh Heum Hwang

Improving indoor wellbeing in a stylish manner!

At first sight, this device may leave you wondering what its purpose is. Is it a speaker? A wireless Charger? A Smart Hub? Well if you guessed any of these then you would be wrong. Matteo is in fact an extremely attractive air purifier. Designed to subtlety enhance indoor wellbeing, it increases the quality of the air in the compact urban home environment. So, interesting form aside, what else sets it apart from the crowd? Well, concealed within the rounded externals is an intelligent hub that allows the device to adapt the smart cleaning cycles to best cater to the everchanging environment that it is placed within!

Like any product that is destined for a life within the home, its aesthetic had to be considered in great depth; the minimal, playful shape combined with the subtle surface detailing, leads to a beautiful design language that really sets this product apart from the rest!

Designers: Marius Kindler, Viggo Blomqvist & Anna Hing in collaboration with Electrolux