Core77

Building Toys We Love: "Linx" by Patrick Martinez

By Ray Hu - February 6, 2012

in Toy | Kickstarter

Born and raised in France, visual artist Patrick Martinez is currently based in New York City who works in just about every medium, from video to drawing to sound. His latest project might be described as sculptural, though its more properly considered as product design as opposed to fine art. Martinez created "Linx" because he "wanted a construction game that was cheap, flexible and light"; he ultimately arrived at small, X-shaped connectors for plastic straws.

They parts come in fence-like flat sheets that snap apart as in plastic model kits, which (if all goes according to plan) will be produced out of recycled or bio plastic right here in the United States.

The project, of course, invites an easy comparison to the successfully-Kickstarted "Skallops," a building toy that consisted of laser-cut connectors for playing cards. (Martinez's goal is four times that of E&M Labs largely due to production costs of injection molding.)

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supafluous

12 years ago

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this has been a good idea for at least 20 years, some better than others: http://www.knex.com/info/history.php

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Gooby

12 years ago

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There are quite a few straw building sets out there including this one http://www.strawsandconnectors.com/. I do appreciate the intention to make it out of recycled materials
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Luke

12 years ago

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Holy crap. This is just *so* perfect. Cheap, versatile, pure, clean, very manufacturable, and probably very fun...

I feel like there's a lot that can be learned from this guy. You guys that run Core77 ought to get an interview with this guy and do an article on his design process.
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