Roto-a-Matic is a collaboration between Chicago-based product development specialists Squibbles Ink and designer toy store Rotofugi. 

Those of you in the midwest (especially around Chicago) and parts of Florida and California have probably, at one time or another, came across a magic vending machine that, when filled with the correct amount of change, creates for you a plastic toy right in front of your eyes. Those machines, usually found in musuems or zoos, are called “Mold-a-Rama”*

A Mold-a-Rama machine injects a molten concoction of polyethylene plastic into a mold, hits it with a blast of air to make the plastic conform to the shape of the mold and then opens up the mold to drop the figure into a bin where you can retrieve it. It’s like MAGIC and we’re huge fans of Mold-a-Rama and the resulting figures, usually referred to by collectors as MARs.

Not quite being content at tracking down MARs in colors and shapes we didn’t already have, we’ve gone and done the most exciting thing we can possibly think of for a MAR collector….we’ve gone and purchased our own machine. Sure, it’s a fixer upper, but it works (see the kangaroo?) and we’re going to fix it up. But we won’t stop there, no. We’ll be making NEW molds for that bad boy, asking some of our artist friends from the “designer toy” world to contribute. We’ve dubbed the project “Roto-a-Matic.”

Stay tuned for more information as we get this project off the ground!

* Mold-a-Rama is a registered trademark of the William A. Jones Co. Please visit their official site here.