[playful music]
- Wooden toys are a timeless classic.
- I think people like wooden toys.
There's something kind of earthy about them.
- I remember playing with--
Some of my favorite toys when I was a kid was wooden toys.
- For Scott Cooper and Kurt Grunwald,
woodworking is a family tradition.
- Kurt: I think 3-inch wheels would be too big, Scott.
- I think you're right. [chuckling]
- And now it's become a holiday tradition.
- My friend Kurt and I,
we were helping out at the Salvation Army
with their Thanksgiving drive.
- They'd be handing out food.
And there would be Christmas toys there
that people could pick something out for their children.
- Scott: We thought it'd be nice if they had a new toy.
- It just seemed natural that
two woodworkers would make wooden toys.
[circular saw buzzing]
[drill whirring]
[saw buzzing]
- And so it began.
The elves, as they call themselves,
started making wooden toys.
* *
- Scott: The first year we made little toy grasshoppers
that you could pull and their legs would move.
We found kids like things
they can kind of pull around and put stuff in.
Each year we do a different toy.
[propeller blades vibrate]
[saw buzzing]
- Twenty years later,
the elves are still at work
and the ideas keep coming.
- So, it's like a semi-truck with a flatbed trailer
that we can put six Matchbox cars onto.
And there'll be a ramp on the back
so they can drive up and onto it.
And then, the ramp flips up so when they drive away,
the cars don't all fly off the back.
[buzzing]
- Over the years, the elves have grown in number.
- Scott: So we now have five woodworking elves.
We have an accessorizing elf.
We make 50 of them.
So, we get little stations going and everybody, kind of,
gets their part of the job.
We could divide up the cabs,
if people want to take them back and sand them.
- I really enjoy working in the shop.
I really enjoy working with wood.
And I really enjoy getting together
with a group of fun guys
who like to do some work, too.
- We'll sand them all, polyurethane them,
and then, we'll drill all the holes.
- It's a kind-hearted tradition that's been extended
to the UW-La Crosse campus, where most of the elves work.
- All right, I'll see you guys.
I gotta run over to class.
- And where Scott teaches biology.
- NanoDrop is usually pretty accurate.
- When Scott's students learned about the project...
well, the holiday spirit spread.
- Now, it's kind of become a Christmas tradition.
Towards the end of the semester, they all help paint toys.
I think it helps them blow off steam around finals week, yeah.
- The "science of giving" is a lesson taught
right alongside medical research.
- We're going to be transforming
either the AXL plasmid or the AXL-KD plasmid
into your individual cancer cell line.
- Students and teachers working on life's problems
at opposite ends of the spectrum.
- You always think, nowadays, everybody wants electronics,
and, you know, plastic toys, and stuff like that.
But I think kids do gravitate towards wooden toys.
- So, as summer gives way to autumn
[saw buzzing]
the sounds of the season
already echo into the night
[nail impacts wood]
into the toys
and into the hearts of young children.
[sander whirring]
- Scott: We know it's making a difference.
- Well, I hope they're enjoying them,
as much as I did when I was a kid.
I just hope that they have a good Christmas, really.