crayons

How 3 billion Crayola crayons are made

EASTON, Pa.--Alongside Lego bricks, Crayola crayons may well be the most common playthings on Earth. Or so it seems. Every year, Crayola produces more than 3 billion of its famous coloring implements.

When I was planning my Road Trip 2010 to the East Coast, I knew I had no choice but to go and see how they're made. And on Friday, I was lucky enough to get to do so.

Click here for a full photo gallery on the Crayola crayon production process.

Unfortunately, the company doesn't allow observers at its actual production plant. But it has … Read more

Fun drawing game

Crayon Physics Deluxe Demo has a lot of surprises for a simple art game. We were impressed by its addictive play, and we think kids will fall in love with it, too.

The program's interface was stunningly beautiful and easy to navigate. It's primarily set up for a child or a child and parent, so the onscreen directions were appropriate. There's no Help file, but the program's intuitive design was easy to understand. The crayon-on-paper game centers on rolling a ball so that it meets up with a star. Each "island" contains several levels … Read more

Crayola's colorless MP3 player

It's official: Nothing is sacred. Even though everyone and his dog seem to be making an MP3 player these days, we didn't think we'd see one from Crayola.

Its specs didn't exactly bowl over Engadget--"There's nothing all that remarkable about the MP3/WMA player from what we can tell: It's got a tiny screen, an SD card slot and is powered by a single AAA battery."

We'll take it a step further: Other than a blue LCD and some green accents, it barely has any color. Maybe we're … Read more