Mr Rotato Head toy concept for a Hasbro Hackathon!
Years ago my 17 year old son and I participated in a toy hackathon put on by Hasbro. You may be asking "What's a hackathon?" Generally speaking it's a competition where teams come together to build something new and novel, to present to a panel of judges at the end of a weekend. My son and I signed up, and submitted a toy concept called Mr. Rotato Head, based on the classic Mr. Potato Head toy. After presenting our prototype to the judges we later learned we didn't place. While disappointing, we had a lot of fun, and it's a memory we both cherish.
Fast forward to many years later, I was attending a conference and started chatting with someone from the event. The person I was speaking with worked at Hasbro. In fact, he remembered me from the hackathon, he was one of the judges. He said all of the judges loved our idea, but because my son was a minor, they couldn't give us an award, but thought we deserved first place. Talk about delayed gratification! Here's a video of our original pitch to Hasbro of our toy concept. To see a video of our fake television commercial for the product visit • Mr Rotato Head commercial . Enjoy!