Yes!  Your child uses a kitset which includes laser-cut pieces, electronics and instructions.  Go to the shop to see what they can make.

We find it hard to give an age because it depends on your child's "makiness".

In general, our kitsets are more challenging than usual and we don't apologise for this because some kids and adults want more "thinking" in their science kits.

The kids don't struggle too much with the electronics but do have to learn how to strip wires, screw in small screws and glue pieces together.

It may also be that they are still learning about following instructions carefully - so skip steps, or don't follow them.

In general we suggest an age range of 9-adult.  Kids age 9-11 may need parental help, kids age 12-14 will do fine if they follow instructions well.  But it really depends on their skills and their interest and "makiness"!

We design and make our kits ourselves here in NZ.

Stefan draws them up then laser-cuts them in Russell, New Zealand.

He sends them to Sophia in Auckland who packages them all up, writes instructions and sends them off to you.

We design our PCB boards but order these and our electronic components from overseas because NZ doesn't manufacture these.

We try as much as possible to get our packaging and anything extra from NZ local sources.

We make our kits from eco-ply wood.  If you drop them, they don't shatter but it is possible to break electronics if they aren't handled with some care. Usually this means that someone pulls on the wires and breaks the solder.

One of the neat things is that if a bit falls off or a tile or wire comes loose, the child knows how to fix it because they put it together themselves.

Tinker Tiles by SharperThinker™ is a new system we have developed.

Each tile has an electronic component on it, such as an LED, and a unique way of wrapping wires around the corners.  This means the tiles don't need soldering and can be reused again and again.

We have developed them this way so that children get familiar with the proper "real" component - rather than something that has been artificially surrounded in plastic or magnetized.  The wrapping of the wire also promotes fine motor skills and reinforces the concept of conductivity - metal must touch metal for the circuit to work.

Our "prongs" on the tile, mean that the wire doesn't come loose easily, but there are also screw holes on each tile and a baseboard available to screw the tiles onto.  No more frustrating loose connections.

These tiles open up a huge array of possibilities from free playing and making up their own ideas.

We have written our first eBook to match the Tinker Tiles Base Set to kickstart kids into inventing with the tiles.  A second book is on the way plus more projects - and more tiles.  Our next lot of tiles will be a bit more advanced and allow for more technical projects!

We have a heap of very exciting ideas in the works so sign up to our newsletter and follow us on facebook so you can be the first to know what's going on!

Looking after the planet is a big value of ours so we decided from the start to try to design and make good products.

We choose sustainably harvested Italian Black Poplar.  It's grown in land that was once used for agriculture (already cleared).

A lot of places use bamboo which can be amazing but you do need to check the provenance.  Unfortunately, bamboo has become so popular, that people are cutting down rainforest to plant fast growing bamboo.  MDF is also a bad choice for us because it's full of glues and can also be made up of scarce native woods.

We do get our electronics from overseas so we try to buy in bulk rather than tiny orders.  Because we're small, this is somewhat tricky.  We try to use metal or resist plastic where we can.

We buy our packaging here and don't have plastic windows in our box.  All our packaging is paper or card and can be reused/recycled.

And, we've made a conscious decision not to use coin cell batteries.  These cause dreadful burns to the oesophagus within 20 mins of accidental swallowing.  They also can't be recycled or reused.

We're not perfect, but like everyone, we are trying to work through the issues and practice sustainability.

We post kits throughout New Zealand using NZ Post.  We can post Internationally.  We're currently set up for Australia and the UK.  Please get in touch if you would like to know costs for another country.