Rakkiddo Shoe Wheel by Rakku Designs

Rakkiddo Shoe Wheel for Kids

Okay, I’ll admit it, this shoe wheel looked like cheap plastic on the website. When my package finally arrived I couldn’t wait to get it open to slap it together really quick. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box to find a collection of heavy weight parts – 6 pounds and 12 ounces of parts, to be exact.  Luckily it wasn’t hard to build it – I called it a project and hubby did it for me. When he had finished and I looked at the size of it I thought we might have gotten the adult shoe wheel model accidentally. I even went online and took measurements before I realized that the kid’s shoe wheel is called a Rakkiddo, and the adult model is just called a shoe wheel or shoe pod and we had been shipped the correct one. 

The Rakkiddo design is interesting – shaped like a carnival ride and fun to spin, it really attracts children’s attention. The wheel is made up of a circular frame with clear dividers that create pie shaped sections within the wheel and thick plastic panels on either side for easy visibility. Along the outside of the Rakkiddo are heavy duty stretchable elastic bands that keep the shoes secured inside the wheel as it spins. This isn’t a cheap “As Seen on TV” product; this really is a piece of furniture. The Rakkiddo is marketed for small children, but really this shoe wheel will last them until they reach adult sizes. Those really lucky adults wearing a size 6.5 or smaller (possibly even a 7, but it might be a little bit tight) can even use the Rakkiddo as opposed to going with the adult shoe wheel.  

I was a bit concerned about the large size of the Rakkiddo until I really started to do some research. The Rakkiddo has a footprint of roughly 1 foot by 23 inches, which is smaller than most all stand alone shoe racks on the market. Another plus that hubby pointed out was that stand alone shoe racks usually require a huge block of wall space because they store the shoes width wise. The Rakkiddo is unique in the fact that the opening is all along its smallest dimension, which means you can use it either parallel or perpendicular to the wall (hey, look at me throwing around math terms). So, even though the design seems big and bulky at first, the Rakkiddo is in most cases smaller than the average shoe rack, and by far more efficient.   

In their most basic design, most shoes are wedge shaped with a small toe and a bigger heel. Other shoe racks have fixed square or rectangle spaces that leave unused space surrounding each shoe. The Rakkiddo design is really ingenious, because it minimizes the amount of dead space by following the natural wedge shape of the shoes. Adding to the little amount of unused space is the fact that the dividers are fully adjustable to accommodate almost all sizes of footwear. It can hold up to 20 pairs of shoes placed neatly inside with their mate, which means that there will be no more mornings looking for lost shoes. The only real issue I see is that 20 pairs of shoes is probably a bit more than the average kid will have at any given stage, so we have already decided that we will let our daughter store toys in her wheel as well. 

I think as a sweeping generalizations go we would all agree that putting away our shoes is not a fun activity, but my hope is that my daughter will enjoy the Rakkiddo so much that she will actually look forward to picking out her shoes every day and then putting them away at night. Okay, so it might not be the absolute highlight of her day, but it is certainly not going to be the most boring.   

You can view the Rakkiddo at the Rakku website: www.rakkudesigns.com. Price: $50, which is more than the average shoe rack, but worth it for the quality and durable design.

 

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