About the crisis of ideas
So, our project was born within the walls of a technopark of one of the universities in Samara. It was born quite by accident, like all the best in our life (for example, love, children, pets, etc.). It all started with the purchase of a laser machine and the question: "What are we going to do, gentlemen?"
And then it started: souvenirs, products for floristry, gift boxes. Then Big Boss came, whose name cannot be called out loud: "Let's make constructors!" - he said, than put everyone in a dead end. The question before me was how to approach this problem in general. Any thinking person can learn anything, there would be a desire. I built one and launched two restaurants from scratch. On the first one, I generally had a "blank slate" + background behind my shoulders. Did she do it !? Where ours did not disappear!
Stadium designers as a business idea
In addition to the machine and many advisers, I had nothing and no one.
So I started with people. A colleague helped in finding an operator. On one of the Internet resources I found a freelance engineer with experience in the development of designers. It helped me a lot. He thinks well in space, works quickly and efficiently. Now he is accepted into the state. There was no question of what to do. It was 2017 - the eve of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The decision was unanimous, and we started developing the layout of the Samara-Arena stadium. Not everything was easy and simple. We swung at a huge size of 50 cm.When we assembled this giant, we got scared and immediately developed an analogue of 30 cm.
The machine tool did not fit within the walls of the technopark, and all of us (me, the machine tool and the operator) were sent to a large Sovdep plant. We danced around the cuts, looking for the right material. Meanwhile ...
A little luck in the piggy bank
A delegation from the provincial administration arrived at the technopark and they caught sight of the stadium ... just at the moment when the construction of the stadium was in full swing. I liked the stadium very much and our models were taken to the stand of the Samara region in the Kremlin, where the draw took place on December 2.
This is how our stadium gained popularity among regional officials. At the peak of the 2018 World Cup, the administration actively made large orders for the stadiums. One caveat ... they were needed assembled. Tadam !!! And this for a minute - 1.5 hours of assembly and more than one hundred products. Therefore, I had to attract little elves led by my daughter for good deeds. Voluntary child labor with parental permission is an excellent option for occupational therapy, after which you don't want to waste money right and left. I know, it's tested!
I missed the moment when I flew out with the project from under the wing of the technopark. Since we sensed the prospects and the appetite came, we definitely needed space for production and financial injections. Therefore, it was decided to let us go to free pasture.
In the same place, in between times, the projects of the stadiums of St. Petersburg and Luzhniki in two sizes were cropped up. There was a story about the St. Petersburg stadium. When we assembled a stadium with a diameter of 50 cm, we were taken aback by its size. And I had to reduce it, to 45 cm. You understand that it’s not the size of the picture on the screen to scale, but thousands of holes and locks.
The World Cup is over, sales are somewhat lower than our expectations. The question arose what to do next. We indulged in the sights of Samara and Moscow. It didn't go. There are sales, but we did not observe the wow effect.
Unexpected discoveries and new projects
We were lucky to accidentally open a niche. In Samara, there is a dacha of the architect Golovkin, which the people of Samara simply call "Dacha with Elephants". There are some very unusual elephants there. The sculptor of Samara made a stylization of an elephant using the Low Poly technique. I don’t know the details of this story, I got a finished model. We tried to cut it into layers, thought out a system of internal fasteners for assembly without glue. This is how our polygonal beasts turned out.
Then the hydraulic arm was born. Until recently, I did not believe that plywood and water could be close. But Big Boss came and ... well, you remember how it ends. It is now the most expensive and best-selling model.
Somehow and somewhere, miniature constructors were born, to which I gave the general name UNIT, which means unit, module, game unit in computer games. This is a constructor in the format of a postcard measuring 10 * 15 cm. What is not a game unit, the more we have big plans in this regard. At the moment, we have developed an interactive augmented reality application that allows you to see the model in volume even before buying it, color it in and read the assembly instructions.
Wooden constructor as a tool for knowledge
One of the chips was that we create not just a construction set, but toys that children can not only assemble, but also play after. All our models are aimed at developing certain skills and knowledge. A series of labyrinths develops movement coordination, dexterity and logic. Siege weapons (arcballista and catapult) introduce you to the basics of ballistics. The hydraulic arm and the walking zoobot touch upon questions of physics and mechanics. And it will not be easy to cope with the control panel of the hydraulic arm without dexterity and logic.
And even the Unigraph drawing machine (working name cycloid) introduces mathematics and geometry.
Future and shortage of creative personnel
So I became a mother, albeit not of dragons, but of a plywood army. Straight Oorfene Deuce and his wooden soldiers. But somehow I liked my mother better. Since I have no idea of taking over the world, but I can cover the whole world in my products. Not a single product has passed my hands. For the last six months we have had a tester, before that I did all the improvements myself. Imagine a cumulative 40 hours of assembling a hydraulic arm (that's 10-12 assembly iterations until all nesting and instruction errors are corrected). And I still do the final assembly. That's the whole story!
There are many plans in my head. But for their implementation, creative and non-standard heads, dreamers and storytellers are needed. People who not only see but also feel space. Good taste and a sense of beauty, sufficiency and laconic forms. People like unicorns, everyone knows about them, but no one has seen. I saw, I worked, I know! But cloning is not yet legal. Yes, both skill and skills are still the result of the background, not genetics. Oh, mom! Quiet my fantasy.