Inventor Adam Kay sent me one of his flat-pack "Cinch Seat" kids' booster chairs to play with. The Cinch Seat comes as four pieces of composite wood-board with a white, hard-wearing eggshell veneer, laser-cut so that all four pieces can be quickly slotted together to form a secure and very pretty booster-chair. A set of nylon straps threaded through the seat board keep the kid safe and also securely affix the seat to a regular chair. It's very quick to assemble and disassemble the seat, and the extremely clever design lets the chair sit at one of two different heights, depending on how you put it together. It's altogether one of the handsomest and cleverest baby-gadgets I've tried.
That said, I have a few caveats. At £57.50, I think it's pricey, especially given the use-case for this as a portable chair you can keep in the car or under the stroller for those times you're out and about at a restaurant or relative's place. I can see paying a small premium to have a really beautiful piece of furniture for home use, but I don't see shelling out to ensure that my kid's chair doesn't clash with the restaurant's decor for the hour we're having lunch there. The composite wood is extremely sturdy and lovely besides, but it's heavy, especially relative to equally hard-wearing (and much cheaper) plastics. Again, the weight isn't a big deal if this is meant to be a permanent home seat, but as a portable seat, every gram counts. Finally, the first-time assembly, during which all the straps have to be threaded through various slots on the seat, is fiddly and confusing. You only have to do this once, but at nearly £60, I'd expect the thing to come ready for use.
Conceptually, the Cinch Seat is fantastic, and I love the idea of making kids' furniture and gadgets out of simple materials with an eye for good design. If price is no object, the Cinch Seat is a great idea -- if I were running an upscale restaurant, I'd certainly consider buying a couple of them.
Cinch Seat (Thanks, Adam!)
Update: Adam adds, "I know it's expensive for a portable booster so I'm happy for you to offer a discount to your readers if anyone orders one before christmas day. I'll reduce it to £50. They just have to let me know they saw it on your site."
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Certainly an excellent solution to keeping a banana safe and accessible.
I dunno. I just finished reading "Makers," and I am thinking this product would be too easy to replicate using only a scaling ruler and some easy-to-find materials.
I hope this comes with a cushion. Otherwise "Squarebottom Doctorow" will be teased mecilessly in school.
Sadly, my kids are past the booster age. But here's an idea for Adam: provide an open source PDF of the design, on the condition that: (1) it is only used non-commercially, (2) anyone who builds it displays the URL of Adam's site on it prominently.
Where did I read "obscurity is my problem, not piracy"
dl;sjf
While I really find this aesthetically pleasing, the weight factor and the lack of a handle are deal breakers for me. When my toddler is demanding that we leave, I don't usually have the free hands to disassemble and pack. My little plastic job does the same thing except for the going flat bit. Still, it's compact and does fold up (with 2 single handed operations) to a reasonable and light package. It's not beautiful, but it's plenty functional.
That said, I do like this...
Quite.
Hmmm...I would be concerned about weight and actual portability. We've used a similar gadget made of fabric and some sort of stiff cardboard. It folded flat but practically put itself together when you grabbed a corner and shook it a bit. It worked really well for restaurants and at the dining room table.
Here's one our daughter's been using for the past 2 years - lightweight, compact, secures quickly to any chair we've come across so far, easy to clean, cheap (£19.99) and comfy:
http://www.mothercare.com/Baby-Polar-Gear-booster-seat/dp/B0010YY0RE?_encoding=UTF8&
You'd be hard pressed to improve upon it design-wise.
Deciliter; Single Jewish Female.
This looks straight out of Nomadic Furniture by Victor Papanek.
i would be very careful purchasing a product such as this. i am a design engineer specializing in juvenile and baby products for well known baby brands, and most of my time is spent designing to meet ASTM, EU, and internal safety standards. Safety is a MAJOR concern for any product associated with infants and toddlers because recalls will bankrupt a company, and almost all recalls are associated with a child injury or worse death. Not only do i design for safety, i spend a lot of time preventing misuse opportunities created by the caregiver, which can lead to bumps, bruises, contusions, and other trauma. Now, i am not stating that this designer or company hasn't done his or her due diligence, but i caution the consumer because the baby product industry is self regulated. Which means, it is the company's or individual's responsibility to follow all applicable safety standards, and retain the documentation, in order to provide a safe product. I know this comment is coming across as being negative and i don't mean to slam the Designer, who by law is liable for any injury that will occur assoicated with this seat. So i can offer some assistance, if the designer wants it, by sharing some of our safety standard literature and test procedures.
@ ryn: I've been watching the comments on this all day hoping someone more qualified than me would point out the SCARY on this product. Never mind that it's heavy, cumbersome and looks uncomfortable but the thought of shuffling these heavy pieces of wood around with my 14 month old skipping around my shins shouting Nanna, yum yum makes me shiver.
Cakeface, good suggestion: http://www.mothercare.com/Baby-Polar-Gear-booster-seat/dp/B0010YY0RE?_encoding=UTF8&
Deciliter; Single Jewish Female?
Damn near killed 'em!
This makes me think of variations on Playatech furniture, which is specifically designed to lay flat for easy transport to/from burning man. The addition of the seat belt is nice though.
http://www.playatech.com/index.php
I do agree though the price is a bit much.
Dear All, thanks for your concern I have however had the seat safety tested by a reputable company which passed it with out any problems. I have designed other products that children use and I would never sell anything that had not been tested to the best standards available. If anyone would like to see the safety reports regarding any of my products please email me via my website.
Regarding the other comments. A lot of boosters don't have cushions, it's not heavy, its comes with a bag to carry it, it wouldn't be easy to make yourself and is very strong and hardwearing.
Thanks Adam
Nice idea, but it seems like "portable" and "wood-board" don't exactly fit in the same sentence when you can buy something like the awesome Phil and Teds portable high-chair for half the price and probably 1/3 the weight and size. We've used one of the p&t; clamp-on high chairs for 2 years and it is awesome and you can run it through the dishwasher when it gets dirty. It does require something to clamp it on to though so it doesn't work in every situation a booster might cover.
http://www.amazon.com/Phil-Ted-27s-MeToo-Chair-Black/dp/B000H6R0T6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s;=baby-products&qid;=1260658089&sr;=8-2
I second the Phil & Ted clamp-on. We have a high chair, plastic booster seat, and the P&T.; The P&T; was the only one that got any real use. It's been through 2 kids and still in good condition.
Plenty of collapsible booster seats out there. Plenty of non-heavy ones, too.
speaking of expensive things, my reCaptcha test is:
"$1.2-billion sallies" - I like that. Band name, anyone?