About the Authors

Smatt is a former game store manager, an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, a 2000 to 2002 Peace Corps Guinea volunteer, and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He has freelanced puzzles and reviews for various publications, including GAMES magazine, Knucklebones magazine, and the Missoulian of Missoula, Montana. He and his partner Annie are moving back to West Africa in late 2007.

Charlie is a former Peace Corps volunteer who served in Uganda from 2002 to 2004. When he's not making rubber band sculptures, he divides his time between drinking chai lattes at the local café and writing software for hi-tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.

About the Origins of Rubb-Origami^TM

In Smatt's freshman year of college, he decided to make a rubber band ball from a bag of small rubber bands. After an hour of looping and twisting, he hadn't gotten very far. Slightly discouraged but nonetheless persistent to obtain some kind of result, he continued making his project but in a very different direction. At the end of four hours of fiddling, Smatt had made the very first rubber band man. He showed it to other students around the dormitory but didn't think too much more about it.

One Christmas, Smatt decided that his creation would make a new entrance. He gave one to each of his nieces and nephew. Their initial excitement soared, but like all kids during the holiday season, they soon moved on to other things. Again, he put the idea aside.

A few months later, Smatt learned that the kids had taken their rubber band men to school. His niece Helen took hers for show-and-tell. The teacher asked her, "What do you like to do with him?" Without missing a beat, Helen responded, "I like to stretch him." At a different school, his nephew Will took his rubber band man on the bus, and all of his friends had fun wiggling, stretching, and playing with him. After these reports, Smatt knew that it was finally time to do something more serious.

Smatt first set about simplifying the process of making a rubber band man. The four-hour prototype would have to go. He worked out a simple, direct methodology for making the figurines. Then he contacted his brother Charlie, and together, they formed a company called Smattworks to handle their products. Finally, they settled upon an official name: Rubber Rubberband Man^TM.

Rubb-Origami^TM, the first book ever to be dedicated to the art of rubber band sculptures, gives step-by-step details about how to make your very own Rubber Rubberband Man^TM.

Buy yours today!