About Us

WordStruct was envisioned several years ago one Sunday morning. The inventor, Doug, was at a party the night before. There, he played "take two", a word construction game that uses traditional square letter tiles.  While driving to church he absentmindedly imagined forming words diagonally using square tiles.  He realized that such words would have jagged, unappealing edges.  As he was trying to think of a better shape for the letter tiles he came to a STOP sign.  

The shape of the sign "clicked" in his mind and he realized that 

octagonal shaped tiles could form words diagonally with smooth,

attractive edges.  Doug also recognized that by making letter tiles octagonal, the axes words can be formed along (on a flat table top in 2D) doubled.  This would instantly increase the complexity, challenge and fun of conventional table top word games. 

Ever one for obscure mental gymnastics, he then wondered if the same octagonal tiles could be used to construct words UP and ABOVE a flat table top. That is... could his hypothetical octagonal tiles be used somehow to build words in three dimensions?  By the time he drove home, in his mind Doug had imagined and tested out a number of methods for connecting the tiles.  His mental experiments led him to conclude that the best solution was to put notches in the tiles that interlocked.

Over the next several years, Doug tinkered and and tested his idea, made prototypes and applied for a utility patent.  It was issued in 2019 and began over a year of testing, font design, and improving the game.  Along the way, he discovered that WordStruct  improves spelling and vocabulary while simultaneously developing spatial intelligence (an crucial STEM skill).

WordStruct's value as an educational STEM tool was confirmed by STEM.ORG, which granted Wordstruct their authentification trustmark, and Purdue University, which included the unique, new game in their 2020 STEM Gift Guide (naming it a Top 10 Choice).  Smithsonian magazine subsequently wrote "WordStruct is an engineer's version of Scrabble".  

Doug hopes that users will enjoy WordStruct, and that over time, it will become a modern version of Froebel's gifts.