Tiggly is a toy for kids who might be past the “teethe on your iPad” and just below the “I want to play the birds game” stages of mental development. Designed by a parent, Steve Miller of Cambridge, MA, the system includes three little shapes and a set of apps that allow kids to interact with shapes, colors, and animals on the screen.
In my experience, kids are using iPhones and iPads younger and younger. Our eight month old stares intently at pictures of baby faces on the iPhone and my son and daughter knew how to slide to unlock before they could crawl. This gives them something fun to do on the iPad and, using capacitive touch points, allows them to put shapes right on the on-screen representations in order to win games and interact with characters.
The toy and three apps cost $29. The apps are quite simple and include:
Tiggly Match is a game that teaches kids how to identify shapes. Target age: 18 months to 2 years
Clearly we’re not working on advanced particle physics here, but it definitely looks like something I could get into with the kids. Miller built the toy for his children after realizing that the educational games for the very small on the iPad required a level of interaction that was quite difficult for the wee ones. Miller needs a minimum run of 5,000 pieces to make these fairly cheaply so he’s looking for a Kickstarter pledge of $50,000 to start shipping these things. He’s at about $10,000 so maybe we’ll have some happy shapes to help smear pureed pears all over our iPads this holiday.