Unidentified Flying Fun

If you’ve recently seen a cool flying toy and wondered to yourself how it stays in the air, it was probably designed by Robert Romash of Eclipse Toys. Starting off as a model maker was an integral part of the original Super Soaker and then went on to bring his design talents to companies like Tyco and Mattel. Eclipse designs 95% of their toys in house and for Robert it’s the perfect storm. If you keep your eyes to the sky you might just see something cool flyby.

4 Questions with Robert...

1. What makes an innovative culture? How do you create a culture of innovation?

Working with creative people you realize you have to give the people coming up with the cool ideas the space and resources to do it. Generally, for me it’s outlining a project or idea and having on hand the supplies and environment needed to support it. It tends to be about getting the creative problem-solving process going and letting people be free to work at their best. Branching out from a particular idea and cultivating the ones that seem like they will bear fruit. Cultivating means letting people be creative and then taking those ideas and picking the best ones to put together.

2. How does your team generate new ideas?

Generating new ideas is always tricky. When I was with Mattel I was a model maker. I wasn’t always in with the designers when they were doing their brainstorming. Once they got their idea, they would bring it to me. I am a pretty observant guy and new ideas can come from anywhere. We use simple play patterns at Eclipse and we are constantly tweaking and modifying products. One method that works for us in many ways is to take the “working components” out of an existing product, look at it, and just think “what else can I do with this?” Our quick charge Hovercraft came about that way. We used the guts from our quick charge plane which made it cost effective too. I also like to design toys that can piggyback on current cool trends or popular sports. We have a range of Wingsuit flying items that came from this process as well.

3. What is the biggest challenge you face when innovating?

One of them is definitely costing. It’s been a buyer’s market for a number years in the toy business. Finding new, innovative ways to maintain and improve my product and not raise the cost is difficult. We used to spray-paint most models and add decals to get the look we want. That can be expensive. Now we have a new way of doing a 4-8 color screen printing on our molded foam. It lowered the cost for material, added much more detail and gave better performance. So we improved everything and brought down the cost. During that, we also needed to focus on all the industry standard testing procedures. You can easily go to China and get low quality toys but you get what you pay for. However, we still have to compete with that. We work close with our factories to constantly evolve the production process for efficiency and keep those relationships strong.

4. Looking to the future, how is Eclipse Toys going to be a leader in innovation?

We are creating products that haven’t been seen before and that’s key. There are tons of toy companies out there that just source and sell. We like to do it all ourselves and keep it fresh. We’re primarily a flying toy company and we have a knack for making things fly that people didn’t think would ever fly. We will continue to do that undoubtedly.

Tweaking the manufacture process for lower cost while retaining price points is crucial. We also keep a close eye on trends and real life cool things that are new that can be turned into product. As we grow, choosing the right new people for the team that “get it” is also on the list.