Toys play an important role in shaping childhood experiences, making them invaluable in every child's journey of growth and discovery. Any form of toy whether it’s a wooden toy, push toy or battery-operated toy captivates young minds. They serve as tools for learning and social interaction, helping children navigate their world through play.

Every toy has a story behind it. For kids, it’s just a toy but a lot of research has been done behind a single toy. To make a toy creative, educative and entertaining a course on toy design was conducted by Prof. Vijay Bapat in IDC, IIT Bombay. At its core, toy design involves conceptualizing, prototyping, and refining toys that cater to specific age groups and developmental stages.

In the course, students were split into two groups to design two kinds of toys: push toys and ride-on toys or playground equipment. They were given a task to design a biomimicry-based toy. The design must take inspiration from nature by using bionics and biomimetic principles to analyse the movements, and physiology of animals and incorporate them in the final design. They have to follow the design process by observing nature, taking biomimicry inspirations, exploring mechanisms, finalisation of prototype and the final concept/toy.

The journey was not so easy. They started doing user study, market research and internet research. Students started observing nature. Putting the idea into an actual toy was a big task. Everyone picked their own ideas and then went through lots of steps like analysis, brainstorming, ideation, mock models, conceptualization, concept evaluation, form exploration, detailing, graphics, branding and posters were done.