We are dropping the target age group a notch for this next review, as it’s target audience is ages three and up but does requires a three to five hundred dollar apple tablet for use. The digital accessory at hand is the Crayola Light Marker, a magic wand (or stylus) for children to draw, color, and interact with a handful of activities. Crayola worked with Griffin to develop this device to get your mini me’s creative juices flowing early with a price tag of $29.99 and compatible with iPad generations 2+ and the iPad mini as the light marker sync’s with the device's’ front facing camera to allow for air drawing to appear on the tablet.
Every once in a while, I get a press release that does not pertain our audience or core interests, but stands out to me as a parent with a teen and family with small children. Growing up Crayola has always been a name in which is associated with colorful art supplies particularly crayons in my household. To start, I had to locate a tiny philips screwdriver to insert the battery, downloaded the free app, synchronized the marker and I was enjoying creative interactive games, probably a bit more than I should have in a total of five minutes. The cool factor definitely comes from the ability to draw in the air less than three feet from the front facing camera and your gestures will be tracked on screen. Unfortunately the device requires dark environment to work best as light makes it harder to track the marker. Being that it is not rechargeable and takes a single AA battery, it does have a feature that automatically powers down after ten minutes without use to save your charge.
In the end, the Crayola Light Marker is a fun interactive tool for children to both learn new technology and help get creative juices flowing. I found the use of this tool to be fun and the activities that are included in the apps were a neat way to pique interest, but the real result is seen on the faces of those using the Light Marker, bold old and young. A compact portable folding iPad stand comes with the Light Marker in case you currently do not have a case that doubles as a stand for usage. In the week which I spent showing the marker off to nieces and non tech savvy family members, the battery still has juice, which is nice because finding a screwdriver that small is never an easy task.
