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Magz
have a certain attraction
Glendale structural engineer
banks on his design of 3-D toy.
By Ryan Carter, News-Press
GLENDALE - By 6, toys were
still a foreign concept to Steven Balanchi, now 49. As a young
boy in a humble village in his native Iran, the only thing
he and his friends ever played with was mud, he said. Today,
he is the head a of a multimillion- dollar Glendale-based
company, based around half-inch diameter magnetic balls, small
plastic legs and "X"-shaped pieces.
Out of his Glendale garage, Balanchi designed
Magz, a set of connectible multicolored "bars" joined
using nickel balls. The magnetism allows anyone from 5 to
90 connect the bars to the balls and create structures. It's
not a puzzle or a game, just a construction-type toy people
can build with their hands and fingers, he said. They are
sold in museums and toy stores such as KB Toys and on-line.
The key was to find a toy that would engage
people, but not necessarily challenge them too much. Balanchi
said he has found that balance.
"This was much more free-flowing,"
he said, as he stood in his home above Glendale working on
a bridge made out of Magz.
Magz might be easy to play with, but it took
years to develop and some serious nudging from Balanchi's
son George, 22, to create. And it took some time for Balanchi,
who studied structural engineering, to learn the market wasn't
crying out for a toy people couldn't figure out.
"My tendency was more toward intelligent
toys," he said.
So, he started his toy company, in 1994 and developed what he called the Octacube,
a Rubik's Cube-like square puzzle. The second generation of
that product used square magnets. Neither toy was successful.
"It didn't succeed because it required
hard thinking," he said.
Then one day, his son came across a similar
concept to what Magz became using larger pieces on the Internet.
George urged his father to develop something similar.
"I didn't pay any attention to him,"
Balanchi said. "And I was resisting because I was not
rich enough to throw $20,000 to $30,000 at it."
But after some cajoling from his son, Balanchi
went into his garage and started designing the toy. By 2000,
he was introducing it at trade shows.
Now, George is a co-owner with his father, Magz
has been recognized by the industry as an innovative toy and
they are making so many of them Balanchi has a manufacturing
plant in China.
"We went for it and it just blasted
off," he said.
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