Constable: Wheaton mom puts new twist Rock, Paper, Scissors
As the mother of three children, Kathy Craig couldn't find the perfect kid game. So she invented one.
"My own kids inspired the game," says Craig, 44, creator of a game called RPS Revolution. "I'm a momtrepreneur."
When they were younger, Tyler, now 14, Courtney, now 12, and Bridget, now 9, got caught up in the fads that swept through schools, with kids collecting cards, figurines, accessories and game pieces. Craig and her husband, Paul, did their best to keep up.
"I remember us all jumping in the car to find the one character or set they were missing," Craig says, recalling her kids' and their friends' fascination with wearing Silly Bandz, staging Beyblade battles, collecting Crazy Bones and trying to learn all the characters and rules of Pokemon trading cards.
With children of different ages, it can be difficult to get everyone to enjoy or even agree on a classic family game such as Monopoly, Sorry or Yahtzee.
"We found with family games, if it was very long, someone didn't want to play," says Craig, who helps direct a teen program at Wheaton Bible Church in West Chicago. Looking for a game that could be fast, easy to learn and let a first-grader compete with older siblings, she decided to put a new spin on Rock, Paper, Scissors.
"Adding the Revolution just came to us one day," Craig says of RPS Revolution. Instead of using hands to form the Rock, Paper and Scissors, Craig developed a trio of small characters that fit in a child's hand. Her first set features hand-carved figures of a Knight, Princess and Dragon. Just as Rock beats Scissors, Paper beats Rock, and Scissors beats Paper, the Knight slays the Dragon, the Dragon breathes fire on the Princess, and the Princess wins the Knight's heart. Every piece has an R, P or S on the bottom, so kids can mix and match the sets. There are no limitations on the number of players or how long a game lasts.
"It's also a fun way to solve family problems," Craig says, explaining how her game can be used to decide who has to put away dishes or empty the cat's litter box. "They get engaged in this game and forget about how they are deciding who has to do a chore."
The family came up with about two dozen character combinations, often during dinner at home or during a quick bite at Chipotle.
"Someone would grab a napkin, and someone would grab a pen and we'd start thinking of trios," Craig says. "We would talk about what would be a cool trio, and why would one character beat another. Every character has strengths and weaknesses."
They came up with a space trio, a sports trio, a Christmas trio and others. "We wanted simple, clean geometric shapes, and whimsical characters," she says. "We wanted the figures to be unexpected, not edgy."
Working with an established toy-maker in Oklahoma, Craig took six months to develop a Knight with an oversized helmet grill, a bright red Dragon and a Princess with blond hair and a gold crown.
"The Princess figure took 16 renderings just to work her hair out," says Craig. The mom has launched a Kickstarter campaign, seeking the $37,000 she needs to produce the trio figures sets and meet all the safety requirements. The $15 starter package includes two sets of figurines and shipping.
"We believe in this project. This is a dream for us," Craig says. "We'd love to see it in the stores. Kickstarter is my first step to introduce it to the world."
Her maternal grandfather was an inventor, and her paternal great-grandfather helped pioneer prescription eyeglasses, Craig says. Her husband, who teaches driver's education at Glenbard North High School, and their children are big supporters of her entrepreneurial spirit.
"She always watches 'Shark Tank' but now she's actually doing it," daughter Courtney says.
"She had a lot of bad ideas before this one. Just kidding," quips son Tyler, who picked up a few ideas during his entrepreneurship class at school. "With this idea, I get 10 percent, right, Mom?"
Craig admits to having a few ideas that didn't pan out, including a concept for a store called "Snow and Sand," that would have sold only funky and stylish winter boots and summer flip-flops.
"I've always been an entrepreneur at heart," says Craig. As a young girl growing up in a suburb of Cleveland, she not only wrote the script and filmed an 8 mm movie about the Easter bunny called "Rabbit Shadow," she sold tickets and popcorn to neighbors who came to see it.
With RPS Revolution and Kickstarter, her neighborhood these days is a lot bigger.