The Story Behind Kipkee Toys

From tinker toys to lego, each generation has grown up with their own version of building blocks. Now, adding to this list, there is a new toy conceived and manufactured in the Ozarks that not only engages children but also sparks their imagination. These new toys are called Kipkees, and they are the brainchild of Kickapoo High School graduate Brett Faucett and his business partner Aarayan Thavaran. Faucett is a current student at The School of Art at Pratt Institute and came across the idea for the toy in one of his classes.

“Kipkees began when I was in my sculpture class,” Faucett says, “I had been wanting to do some product design, and we had an assignment to make a vessel out of wood that we glued together. Instead, I thought, ‘What if you made a building block out of it?’”

Following this train of thought, Faucett found inspiration for the toy by thinking about what he found interesting as a kid. He had a love for drawing and wanted to apply that same creativity to Kipkees. He says some toys spell things out for you too much, hindering creativity. Others are too open-ended. “I wanted something that was the intermediary between something artistic and building blocks,” he says.

After Faucett developed the first round of Kipkees, his professor took them home to see what his kids thought about the blocks. They were a hit. Following this, Faucett entered a contest called the New York State Business Playing Competition that included students from colleges all across New York, including Cornell, Columbia and NYU. This is where Faucett first introduced Kipkees to a larger audience, and he walked away with a win in the concept stage. With this newfound success, he realized that he was going to need a business partner to jump-start the company. That’s when he joined up with Thavaran.

Since working together to form the company, the pair has started selling the toys on Shopify and at Springfield stores such as HobbyTown. Faucett encourages customers to send in the designs that they’ve created with Kipkees. “I think posting pictures of what other kids have built creates not only a sense of community, but also it shows what else you can make,” Faucett says.

Throughout the beginning stages of the company, both Faucett and Thavaran have received feedback from customers and the community. This has allowed them to decide what changes to make to the product while also staying true to the original design.

What originally started as one block and an idea now has the possibility pf proving a fun building adventure that allows kids to disconnect from a screen through the power of play.