Berkley company creates environmentally friendly,
battery-free line of toys

By Jeremy Selweski
C & G Staff Writer

BERKLEY — For Sun Yu, in order to look forward, he first had to look backwards.

As president of the Berkley company Zen Design Group, Yu wanted to challenge some of the old conventions about toy design and manufacturing. Intended for the company’s line of “green” toys — dubbed SEE Toys — Yu decided to do away with using disposable batteries as a power source. Batteries, he said, are an unnecessary expense, not to mention a danger to both children and the environment.

“It’s about, how do you utilize your natural resources?” he said. “Those batteries are a lot more harmful than many people believe, especially in communities that have trash incinerators, because it makes the hazardous materials airborne. (Consumers) are dumping 20 or 30 billion batteries per year (worldwide), and that number is increasing by 20 percent every year. It’s incredibly wasteful, but unfortunately, nearly every electronic product uses them.”

In addition, he said, some young children will intentionally or unintentionally swallow batteries, presenting a major health hazard.

That’s why rather than using the ubiquitous little cylindrical energy sources that so many toys employ, SEE Toys utilize dynamos, hand generators that power the electronic toys and allow them to move, light up and make sounds. One minute of cranking on each toy will provide about 10 to 15 minutes of power, Yu said.

“It’s a very old technology, a thing of the past,” he continued. “But kids can crank and play at the same time.”

And that means that parents also save a lot of time and money. According to creative designer David Terrin, “These are electronic toys that you will never need to buy batteries for again,” he said.

Still, Yu does not consider himself an environmentalist. “I’m not waving the banner at all,” he said. “I have no intent of joining the green movement. I’m just doing my own thing.”

SEE Toys include a number of different models, most of them animal-related, including a shark, tiger and dolphin. The most popular toy on the line, though, is the Dynafly, a green, cartoon-like insect featuring buzzing sounds and giant, bulbous eyes that flash red and blue.

“Those colorful bug eyes really mesmerize the kids,” Yu said. “And they love the lights and sounds.”

The lights are of particular interest to Yu, as all of Zen Design Group’s products — from the SEE Toys line to flashlights, headlamps, and novelty pens and key chains — utilize LED light technology.

According to Yu, with the exception of LEDs, all light sources are based on traditional incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. LED lights allow Yu to illuminate his products in a number of different colors, which can then be further changed and manipulated.

“That’s why LEDs are very special,” he said. “They’re a third light source. I believe that when all is said and done, LED lights will be regarded as one of the greatest inventions of the past 25 years.”

Another aspect of SEE Toys that’s integral to their success are the sounds they make when kids turn the handle of the dynamo. The Dynafly, for instance, has a crank in its belly that causes the bug to make a tickling, giggling sound when turned, while the Dynacar makes a revving engine sound.

For Terrin, who has been with Zen Design Group for the past 12 years, the biggest challenge has been to find a way to design unique, high-quality toys that also utilize dynamos and LED lights.

“We’re always conceiving of new ways to bring our ideas to life,” he said. “There are the physical confines of the toy, and it has to be fun, useable and still contain the technology. We’re always trying to work out those issues.”

But it wasn’t always about flashy lights and innovative designs for Yu. When he founded Zen Design Group in 1989, it was under a very different guise — as a commercial design and advertising design agency.

The company began to transition into its present-day form once, as Yu said, they began working with “some clients that allowed us to venture from 2-D design to 3-D design,” namely Frozen Coke, Homedics and General Electric.

As Terrin put it, “We evolved. We turned our talents on to our own products and began using our own ideas.”

It also didn’t hurt that Yu had done a lot of work with battery manufacturing companies, such as Duracell, Rayovac and Sanyo, designing flashlights that don’t require disposable batteries.

“From that concept, we came up with the idea of creating toys that are powered by kids doing the cranking,” Yu said.

Now in its second year, the toy line has been a triumph so far — the Dynafly was even awarded Creative Child Magazine’s Seal of Excellence in 2007 — but Yu admitted that it has been difficult marketing a line of green toys.

Environmentally friendly toys are often seen as a niche market, and it can be especially challenging to sell electronic products that bypass the multi-billion-dollar disposable battery industry altogether. For a small company like Zen Design Group — whose 12 employees do all of the designing, manufacturing, packaging and advertising for their products — there is an even taller mountain to climb.

Nevertheless, Yu remains optimistic. “The industry will hopefully come around in a few years,” he said. “There is some segment of the market that thinks the same way as I do.”

For more information on SEE Toys, contact Zen Design Group at (248) 398-5209 or at info@seetoys.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Selweski at jselweski@candgnews.com or at (586) 218-5004.