ThinkFun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ThinkFun, formerly known as Binary Arts, was founded in 1985 by Bill Ritchie and Andrea Barthello. The two started the company from the basement of their home in Virginia, with a product base that initially consisted of four games invented by a family friend William Keister (Spin-out, The Cat, The Horse and Hexadecimal Puzzle). The husband and wife team used these products as a launching pad for their company, and within six months they were able to move the company headquarters out of their basement and into a more workable space and were able to begin to expand their product line.^[1]

About ThinkFun

ThinkFun was founded in 1985 by husband and wife team Bill Ritchie and Andrea Barthello were in their basement with a noble mission, "To translate the brilliant ideas of the craziest mathematicians, engineers and inventors into simple toys that can be appreciated by boys and girls around the world." The 1980s were a difficult time in the toy industry. Retailers were moving away from games, and the Rubik's Cube, which had broken through in the mass market, was losing popularity. In 1990 the retail market transformed and the number of malls began to skyrocket. Retail-lifestyle stores looking for specialty products, began to discover ThinkFun’s games and the company began to grow exponentially. From 1992 to 1994 ThinkFun was listed on Inc 500s fastest growing companies list (#299 in 1992, #261 in 1993 and #396 in 1994).^[2]^[3]^[4] In 1996, ThinkFun released its most successful game to date: Rush Hour. Rush Hour, invented by Nob Yoshigahara, was a traffic-jam themed board game with 40 puzzles ranging in difficulty from beginner to expert. From that time, the company has continued to grow and now does business in more than 50 countries and all fifty states in the US. Thinkfun has relied on a network of the world’s premier inventors, including Yoshigahara and Scott Kim, among others, to continue to develop their product line.

Read a more thorough history of the company written by founder Bill Ritchie.

Complete list of Thinkfun products by year:

ThinkFun was one of the first toy companies to move into the app market, and versions of its Rush Hour, Solitaire Chess, and Chocolate Fix games , are available for the iPhone, iPod touch, and Android.

ThinkFun has focused much of their attention on early learning products geared towards the education of younger children with games such as Zingo, What’s Gnu, Snack Attack, and S'Match! In 2012, ThinkFun introduced Roll & Play , the very first game ever developed for toddlers.

ThinkFun's commitment to developing innovative products that truly stretch the brain has led to more formal work into problem solving instruction and brain training. ThinkFun has partnered with the Bunge Cognitive Control and Development Lab at UC Berkeley, who have used brain imaging to measure the effects of game play on reasoning ability. In an initial study, Dr. Silvia Bunge and her team of researchers found that elementary students who played games including ThinkFun's Rush Hour and Chocolate Fix for a total of 20 hours over an 8 week period demonstrated an average increase of 13 points on a measure of performance IQ.^[5] Energized by these initial findings, ThinkFun and the Bunge Lab are framing out a large-scale study that will use fMRI technology to measure the effects of game play on the brain.

For more on the work ThinkFun is doing in the world of education and to explore connections between game play and learning, visit SmartPlay blog^[6]

Core Products

Rush Hour
Zingo!
MathDice & MathDice Jr.
Chocolate Fix
Swish
Roll & Play
Solitaire Chess
Distraction
PathWords & PathWords Jr.
36 cube
Hoppers

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to ThinkFun.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.