A Preview of the Wooden Battleship Blast Away Playhouse by Wheedle Toys
It was an announcement that surprised the toy industry when Wheedle Toys stated that they would be building the Blast Away – the next playhouse in their popular Battleship Playhouse series – using mostly wooden materials and not plastic as previously thought. Their previous Battleship Playhouse – the Marine Camo was composed entirely of plastic.
I was able to talk to the main people responsible for the creation of Blast Away Battleship playhouse at Wheedle Toys, and learned that the primary reason why Wheedle Toys went with wood was the fact that plastic materials simply could not hold the tremendous amount of features that is going to be in the Blast Away Battleship playhouse. Wheedle Toys officials further stated that even the storage capacity of large plastic parts was insufficient to hold the fun and exciting features that will be added to the Blast Away Battleship playhouse.
More than 800 “bulky individually cut plastic materials” would be necessary to accommodate the features that will be on just 300 individually cut wooden blocks of varying sizes. Even more surprising was the fact that Wheedle Toys announced that the playhouse would be finished in time for an early January 2016 launch in the U.S. Since the playhouse prototype was just conceived in early 2015, that leaves less than 12 months to complete the final product.
I questioned whether that would be anywhere near feasible, considering Wheedle Toys has had no experience in creating wooden playhouses and that the previous plastic-constructed Battleship playhouses took up to 22 months to complete – from prototype to end-product. Wheedle Toys officials stated that in order to meet the deadline, they set up the largest playhouse toy development group ever assembled in the world: Over 82 people are working on the project, both in Wheedle Toy’s HQ based in Boston, and at Wheedle Toy’s new production facility in Michigan. The Michigan team is primarily responsible for many of the initial prototype designs.
But what about the playhouse? Well, I was given the opportunity to tour Wheedle Toys’ new Michigan production facility, and it is state-of-the-art all the way.
More than 800 “bulky individually cut plastic materials” would be necessary to accommodate the features that will be on just 300 individually cut wooden blocks of varying sizes. Even more surprising was the fact that Wheedle Toys announced that the playhouse would be finished in time for an early January 2016 launch in the U.S. Since the playhouse prototype was just conceived in early 2015, that leaves less than 12 months to complete the final product.
I questioned whether that would be anywhere near feasible, considering Wheedle Toys has had no experience in creating wooden playhouses and that the previous plastic-constructed Battleship playhouses took up to 22 months to complete – from prototype to end-product. Wheedle Toys officials stated that in order to meet the deadline, they set up the largest playhouse toy development group ever assembled in the world: Over 82 people are working on the project, both in Wheedle Toy’s HQ based in Boston, and at Wheedle Toy’s new production facility in Michigan. The Michigan team is primarily responsible for many of the initial prototype designs.
But what about the playhouse? Well, I was given the opportunity to tour Wheedle Toys’ new Michigan production facility, and it is state-of-the-art all the way.
Besides hiring Darius Sanchez and Kyle Huddleston, two of U.S.’ top playhouse toys designers, Wheedle Toys has installed some of the best wood cutting and crafting equipment, including the DEX799 machine from Ultrazeed Tools as well as brand-new digital editing studios in their offices. These enhanced production facilities will enable Wheedle Toys to create dynamic, fully featured Battleship playhouse with a level of realism never before seen in a playhouse toy. For example, the primary toy gun battery on the deck will now rotate 360 degrees, and the multi-layered interior will feature realistic looking captain’s cabin, ward room, war room, and even several small arms lockers. All these features and more will be brought to life using various wood construction techniques and new toy painting effects to create a realistic pretend play experience.
The results will be evident in the overall realism as it will draw the child deep into a fun pretend play experience. With the playhouse barely underway, the version that I saw was less than 15 percent complete. Still, the twin decks were extremely well done, with different toy battery guns and cannons used while switching positions, from head-on to the user to straight on to the opposition after the user attacked with a weapon…all very smooth and realistic. The weapons on the decks fire foam darts. Most of the weapons weren’t ready but officials stated that they would be able fire 100 foam darts per minute with standby refill packs (300 foam darts) that can be loaded within 5 seconds.
The results will be evident in the overall realism as it will draw the child deep into a fun pretend play experience. With the playhouse barely underway, the version that I saw was less than 15 percent complete. Still, the twin decks were extremely well done, with different toy battery guns and cannons used while switching positions, from head-on to the user to straight on to the opposition after the user attacked with a weapon…all very smooth and realistic. The weapons on the decks fire foam darts. Most of the weapons weren’t ready but officials stated that they would be able fire 100 foam darts per minute with standby refill packs (300 foam darts) that can be loaded within 5 seconds.
Wheedle Toys officials further stated that the weapons would be able to produce 10 different sound effects, while the playhouse itself is able to simulate the sound of a real battleship complete with a weapons locking feature, allowing for very fun and realistic pretend battle experience. While only 2 large toy weapons were revealed at the demonstration, officials are hoping to have a total of 7 large weapons on the decks as well as several smaller ones that can fire one foam dart at a time. This amount is currently undecided. The designers are still trying to squeeze more features within the war room. While the war room looked small, the interior was quite realistic. I will stay on top of this playhouse and follow up with a making-of as the Battleship Blast Away playhouse gets father along in development.