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Think building blocks and it’s Denmark’s Lego that dominates, selling in over 130 countries. But Lego’s representation of India has stayed limited to the Taj Mahal. Now, a Bengaluru-based start-up MakersLoft wants to disrupt the toy category with a range of block toys (Indic Bricks) inspired by Indian mythology and architecture, the first of which is a Ganesha statue.
Meghna Bhutoria, founder of MakersLoft, told BusinessLine that the idea behind Indic Bricks was to make kids curious about their culture and heritage. Since its launch earlier this month, Indic Bricks has shipped about 100 units to customers from India and abroad (US, UK, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia). The company plans to soon launch block toys of Kailasha temple, Bal Krishna, Hanuman, Ramayana story telling set, and a few Indian monuments as well. Bhutoria noted that it took about six months for the team of 10-15 to come up with the Ganesha’s statue block toy, because the religious figures tend to have organic shapes (circles, ovals) in comparison to the usual square and rectangular pieces present in block toys.
Architectural styles
Going forward, the company also wants to build archetypes of typical Indian architectural styles such as Dravidian and Nagara style of architecture instead of building the toy based on just one temple. The first product of Indic Bricks is priced at ₹2,999 and is being sold on Amazon and Flipkart.
MakersLoft hopes to offer lower priced toys as it comes up with more offerings in the Indic Bricks range.
Talking about the impact of using blocks to teach students, Bhutoria said, “one thing that is really missing in India’s education system are the spatial skills and when children work with three-dimensional things like block toys they tend to develop these spatial skills. Also, block toys help kids build persistence, perseverance, and focus along with promoting a learning environment where there are no mistakes, as block toys can always be rebuilt if the kid makes some mistake in the process”.
MakersLoft was started in 2015 to provide an opportunity for hands-on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education for children.
Till date the company has trained over 16,500 children across India and abroad in Lego-based programmes, coding, robotics and 3-D printing.
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