Image from Siege Toys
Evan and Michael of Siege Toys blew us away with their first Kickstarter project, a snap-together siege engine laser cut from wood called the Trebuchette. Taking what they’ve learned from their first project, and adding a sublimely simple idea from their old school mate Marshall, they’re back with a follow-up that may outshine their first go-around.
The Skallops are small half-circles of laser-cut plywood, with small notches that easily hold and grip heavy stock paper, most notably playing cards. The combination of a batch of Skallops and a deck of cards is like an entire Erector or Lego kit. You can pretty much build anything you can imagine. Of course, you can take simple playing card towers up to the ceiling, but beyond that, all sorts of 3-dimension structures are possible.
Beyond the zeppelins and DNA molecules I saw when I visited their workshop last month, my immediate reaction was that these were perfect for fast, inexpensive dungeon-building for a good round of D&D. I can even imagine printing out stone and wood image textures on 3″ x 5″ cards and using those for walls and doors.
Skallops are one of those ideas that is so simple, yet elegant, that you wonder why you haven’t seen them before. And the guys are only looking for $7,300 in backing to bring them to market, so go give them a hand on their project page.
[Note: if you watch the video carefully, you may even see me and my family playing with the Skallops when we visited their workshop to pick up our Trebuchettes.]
