New Palo Alto toy company blends engineering and design to help kids discover nature

Parents in Palo Alto looking to bolster their kids’ math skills might gravitate to online programs or apps, but a recent event at Johnson Park in Palo Alto showed that one of the best ways to teach problem-solving requires no technology at all: old-fashioned fort building.

“It was amazing to see all the math and engineering principles the kids used to build the forts,” said Claudia Truesdell, the founder of Mudcake Goods, a Palo Alto company with a mission to get kids out in nature. Mudcake has created a new tool called GrittieGRIPS that facilitates fort building for kids as young as five years old.

At Johnson Park, Claudia brought in a load of fallen sticks, invited kids from the neighborhood and provided the GrittieGRIPS to see how they facilitated imaginative play and construction. Watching the children jump into the fort building was deeply satisfying for Claudia, who conceived GrittieGRIPS after observing her three kids struggle to put sticks and logs together during family camping trips.

 “The desire to build things comes naturally for children, but without the right tools, it can be a frustrating experience,” Claudia explained. “The kids at Johnson Park spent hours putting sticks together and testing different ways to create stability and balance- the GrittieGRIPS just made the whole process easier for them.”

 As one of the girls said, “When I was little I would build forts out of chairs and blankets and stuff, and they always fell down, but building your own little miniature house is fun. I kind of like it when the forts fail, because it teaches you ‘don’t do that, it doesn’t work,’ so it’s part of the process.”

Design + Engineering= Creative toys for kids

For Claudia, a Menlo Park native, Mudcake is the culmination of her diverse background as an engineer, product designer and

parent. With a Masters of Engineering in Product Design from Stanford University’s Joint Program in Design, Claudia was an interaction designer with GVO Inc. before co-founding Sparkfactor Design in 2001. Sparkfactor, now run by Abraham Farag, is a Palo Alto-based product development consultancy with clients including Apple and Tesla.

A born tinkerer, Claudia started Mudcake in 2013 and began using her garage as a ‘maker space’ to experiment with toys that combine a connection to the natural world with a Silicon Valley emphasis on elegant design and innovation.

Mudcake’s first product is called the Bitsypic, a tool that makes it easy for kids to zoom in on items found in nature. The Bitsypic, which is available for sale at Paxton Gate’s Curiosities For Kids in San Francisco and online through ESDevices.com, provides children with both a tray to collect things and a stand that turns a smartphone into a magnifying glass.

“I loved watching my daughter and her friends build fairy houses and collect colorful rocks and bugs,” Claudia said. “With the Bitsypic, a group of kids can gather around something they’ve found to see it up close- it takes the emphasis away from

technology and onto observing the environment.”

 Kickstarter for GrittieGRIPS 

To secure enough capital to get GrittieGRIPS off the ground, Claudia has launched a Kickstarter campaign that aims to raise $9000.

There is no doubt that getting kids away from screens and into nature is a desire shared by many parents in our technology-saturated world. As one of the dads at the GrittieGRIPS event observed, “I know a lot of time our kids are in front of screens watching videos or playing games, and it’s very different from when I was

young. This toy encourages kids to get outside and play, and it’s a much better experience than sitting on a couch.”

As Claudia looks towards the future, she has lots of ideas for how Mudcake can continue to engage children in becoming caretakers of the natural world, including a possible game to reward kids for reducing their impact at home, such as lowering water and energy usage.

“Our world is full of so many challenges and it can be overwhelming to find ways to make a difference,” she explained. “Mudcake aims to empower children to be creative problem solvers today so they can become the environmental leaders of the future.”

All photos by Mudcake Goods.