Tree of Knowledge | Experience design

The team at Tree of Knowledge provide a unique and innovative range of services and tools to help children, young people and adults become more enterprising in their education and personal development. You may recognise the founders – Alan Burton and Gavin Oattes – from their appearance on BBC hit series Dragons Den. Peter Jones described the duo as “probably the two best [educators] that I’ve seen”.

The Business Need

4c Design worked with Tree of Knowledge to design the Peapodo, an active learning resource for early years pupils. Following on from the success of the Peapodo, Tree of Knowledge asked 4c to design the APODO, a larger and more comprehensive version of the Peapodo, designed for older children and including over 100 hands-on, interactive, fun activities. By 2011, it was time to update the Peapodo and this time 4c helped Tree of Knowledge refresh the aesthetic design, reduce cost and improve the user experience.

Our Activities and Deliverables

Both the Peapodo and the APODO are exciting, imaginative and inspirational learning tools which have broken new ground in educational circles and are already used in more than half the schools in Scotland.  These products exemplify 4c’s experience in designing innovative and creative consumer products.

The Result

Roxan put the TagFaster into production immediately and it was very well received by customers. The TagFaster also won Roxan a silver award for technical innovation from the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland.

Roxan was later bought out by Datamars. One of the international leaders in RFID for livestock.

“The team at 4c Design quickly understood the concept we had in mind for ‘Peapodo’ – their creativity, understanding and vision was key to the development of a very successful product. They ensured the Peapodo met our high standards both functionally and aesthetically. Working with 4c Design was a thoroughly enjoyable and creative experience from start to finish. We will definitely be calling on the services of 4C Design for our next project. I rate this company very highly and would not hesitate in recommending them to anyone.”

Dougie Clark – Tree of Knowledge Director

• Concept development
• Service design
• User centred design
• Industrial design
• Mechanical engineering
• Rough prototyping
• Design for manufacture