Tangeez

Tangeez are round blocks, each with its own power and light. They work as a toy and a design object. Stacking and rearranging them changes their colors.

Tangeez were born out of the desire to make “interactivity” simple, beautiful and tangible. They use the same RGB (red, green, blue) colour system as the screens all around us, but these “physical pixels” create a tactile, interactive and often social experience.

The idea started because I wished I’d had an interactive building block growing up. We first brought them to Maker Faire in 2011, and there we “were able to see how people would play with them without us saying much about it.”

One Tangee can’t work on its own. It needs another Tangee, or a base plate, to illuminate.

Each Tangee has three prongs on the top, three holes on the bottom, and one three-colour LED in the middle. Connect one prong and you’ll see one colour, red, green or blue, depending on the hole you choose. Two prongs mix two colours… three prongs, three colours. The more you change and rearrange, the more colours you create.

With

Emily Webster

Kickstarter, 2013

$51,371 from 413 backers

Sold

About 5,000 by late 2014

Recognition

Maker Faire Editor’s Choice, two years running · Finalist, New York’s Next Top Makers · Kickstarter Staff Pick