Special Toy Stories

Rib-It-Ball is Playability Toys' first product. Ever wonder about it? It's no ordinary ball. It looks, sounds and feels very different than ordinary balls and here is why? Here's the story of the ball and our founder Bud Fraze.
The average person would not naturally connect aerospace design with special needs toys. One might ask what these two disciplines have in common. Spacecraft and special needs toys?
In 2001 Bud Fraze, President and Founder of Playability Toys was Launch Operations Manager for a satellite company and designing mainstream toys in his spare time with his friend Bill Bridge. Bill’s idea was to start an action toy company and he had recruited Bud to collaborate. Upon returning from overseas travel, Bud received a call from the mother of a child who was born with Bilateral Anophthalmia. The mother left a message stating that her 18 month old son had visually impairment and she was frustrated with the toys available on the market, specifically balls. She had heard that Bill and Bud were designing toys and asked that they look at designing a ball for her son, Jacob. A few days passed and the mother called again and this time she explained in detail what the requirements for the ball were. Requirements are something that design engineers work from. How large is the camera on the satellite, how long must it operate, what is its orbit and so on. She was very detailed in her requirements: it must be (a) lightweight (b) easy to grasp or hold (c) make noise when grabbed, dropped or tossed (d) it could not have any batteries or electronics (e) be able to roll but not roll away (f) bounce but not bounce out of his reach.
In Bud’s words. “When considering these requirements they seemed counterintuitive. How could it make noise without some power source such as a battery or electronics? Within a week the mother called me again and asked how the project was coming? I was a little taken aback because I wasn’t sure exactly how the ball could be designed, I was still processing all of this and had not anticipated that someone would challenge me with that sort of project. “I’m still thinking about the design”, I told her. The phone calls continued and weeks went by. I use SolidWorks, a computer aided design software, to model in 3D my aerospace work so I also used it to create the ideas that came to mind with the ball. Each concept would work in one area but not in another. I was becoming increasingly frustrated with this challenge but as with most engineers I couldn’t abandon the project; I just kept at it.

Bill and I had raced sailboats in San Francisco for many years and I remembered that the sail cloth used on spinnakers made lots of noise when stuffed into sail bags. That gave me an idea, maybe if the ball were made of that cloth it could produce some noise. As luck would have it there was a sail loft located in the same building and I knew the manager, Lynn. I went to the loft and asked Lynn if she could sew a prototype from sailcloth if I gave her a solid model, drawings and dimensions. “Sure!” was Lynn’s response. A few days later, Lynn brought the first prototype of the ball to me. It was light weight and almost seemed to float when it was tossed. When it bounced on the floor it made a soft noise and it didn’t roll away but simply rocked back and forth. The cloth ribs on the side made it easy to grasp and kept it from rolling away. I asked Lynn to make a few more of the balls so we could test them. After I was satisfied I called the mother and sent a couple of the balls to her. After a week she called me back and related how much Jacob enjoyed the ball.
I thought this was the end of the project and went back to other work. A few weeks later I received a call from a woman who worked in special needs. She explained to me that she had sent one of the balls to the Helen Keller Institute and if I would come back there for a meeting she would like to talk to me. She told me to bring some balls along but to make them with black, white and red cloth. I flew to New York and met her at the institute annex in Manhattan. She took me to a room with a half dozen children who had visual impairment. They were standing apart from each other at other activities. She then took one of the larger red, white and black Rib-It-Balls™ and tossed it into the room. The children immediately ran to the ball and started playing with it, laughing and yelling. “You see?” she said, “It works, they’re having fun.” I stood there at the doorway watching in silence. Trying to take it all into my consciousness and analyze what I was seeing sent my mind into overload. For me it was a defining moment. I realized that one event had done more to change my attitude about my designs than any spacecraft or aerospace project I had ever worked on. The Rib-It-Ball™ ball, in my mind, made more of a difference to people than any high tech project I had ever been involved. We contacted a manufacturer who could mass produce the ball and the rest is history.”
Bud still designs spacecraft but his “special passion” is to design toys for “special children”. Playability Toys will always be unique and tailored for the community they serve. Ideas for other toys continue to be submitted from the teachers and therapists involved in special needs. Without them we couldn’t do what we do.