Cubby Buddy is a lovable, living, interactive, speaking bear that helps make every Imagine City visit more personal, educational, and unforgettable.
Your child checks out their own Cubby at the front desk. He learns their name, knows which playhome he is standing in, tells jokes, runs treasure hunts, reads stories, and cheers every time they figure something out.
Cubby began as an Imagine City companion. The same bear is now being offered to hospitals, developmental programs, schools, and family-support organizations well beyond our walls. Open whichever track is yours.
All of this is further down the page — jump straight to the part you care about.
Educational play, social development, companionship, a personal bear, and a city he knows by heart.
Check out a bear, say hello, explore the city together, bring him back. None of it takes longer than a minute.
Talks, jokes, reacts to being held, knows which playhome he is standing in, and runs treasure hunts.
Matching, opposites, spelling, adding and subtracting, and word search — with Cubby coaching out loud.
Send a message in your own voice, trigger a moment, read along, and watch the points climb.
Everything your child earns stays with your family, visit after visit.
First name and age. No camera, no listening in, and personalized audio deleted at checkout.
Cubby Buddy is a personal, interactive companion bear that responds to a child’s environment with stories, encouragement, activities, and playful conversation — without using a camera or microphone.
Children often experience the world through play, familiar routines, and trusted relationships. When those routines are interrupted, a consistent companion can make a new environment feel less confusing and more approachable.
Cubby responds with approved stories, jokes, encouragement, activities, and place-specific conversation. He can recognize approved locations, react to movement and touch, respond to special objects and child-controlled buttons, and personalize greetings and activities for each child.
A consistent companion a child can recognize and return to.
Friendly prompts that invite play, conversation, choice-making, and activity.
Approved cues and routines that can help a child understand what is happening next.
Interactive support without watching or listening to the child.
Comfort, play, preparation, distraction, bedside engagement, and long-stay continuity.
Predictable prompts, low-pressure interaction, transitions, communication opportunities, and joint activities.
A sense of home, activity continuity, sibling engagement, and support during extended or uncertain stays.
Personal ownership, gentle engagement, predictable routines, and a consistent companion during transitions.
Arrival routines, activity transitions, literacy, facts, cooperative play, and classroom participation.
Group activities, social invitations, scavenger hunts, encouragement, and program navigation.
The same core bear can serve every one of these settings, but the content, cleaning rules, staff controls, and success measures are customized for each partner.
The same bear, voice, name, and interaction style can remain consistent across visits or throughout a longer program.
Place-specific greetings and approved explanations can help a child understand where they are and what happens there.
Cubby can invite a child to choose an activity, explore an object, join a game, greet another child, or take the next small step.
Conversation starters, turn-taking prompts, and shared jokes give children a low-pressure reason to interact with peers, caregivers, or staff.
Stories, games, facts, and child-controlled interactions can redirect attention during waiting, transitions, or other stressful moments.
Approved prompts can mark arrivals, activity changes, quiet time, preparation, and departures in a more child-friendly way.
Buttons and approved activity choices let children start interactions rather than only receive instructions from adults.
A child-life specialist, educator, therapist, or program leader helps determine what Cubby says in specific places or situations.
Cubby is designed to create more moments of comfort, choice, participation, and connection — especially when a child is away from home, unsure of what comes next, or hesitant to engage.
Cubby is designed to support child-life and care teams — not replace them. Partners decide what he says, where he can be used, how he is cleaned, and which children or units are appropriate for a pilot.
He is not an autism treatment, and he is not intended to make every child interact in the same way. The strongest programs are built with professionals, families, and neurodivergent children, with sensory preferences and individual communication needs leading the design.
Each Cubby stays with the same child throughout the program. This supports familiarity and ownership while avoiding routine sharing between children.
Small signals placed in approved areas help Cubby understand where he is. Special tags can help him recognize selected objects. Motion, touch, and child-controlled buttons help him know when to respond. He does not need a camera or microphone to create a personalized experience.
We would rather start small and get it right than ask an organization to commit before the program has been shaped around its children and its staff.
Identify the children served, physical spaces, staff workflow, privacy requirements, cleaning rules, and desired outcomes.
Select locations, activities, scripts, objects, buttons, sensory settings, and staff controls with your team.
Review infection prevention, facilities, IT, privacy, child safeguarding, and accessibility requirements.
Begin with a limited number of children and assigned bears in approved areas.
Show staff how to assign Cubby, start and stop interactions, select content, clean the exterior, and document issues.
Review engagement, usability, child and caregiver feedback, staff burden, reliability, and program fit before expanding.
No. Cubby is a supportive companion and engagement tool. He does not diagnose, treat, monitor, or replace a clinician, therapist, educator, child-life specialist, caregiver, or other professional.
No. Cubby is designed to operate without a camera or microphone. He does not need to see a child’s face or listen to private conversations to create an interactive experience.
Cubby may be useful for some autistic children when the experience is optional, predictable, sensory-aware, and customized with professionals and families. He is not an autism treatment, and the program should respect each child’s communication style and preferences.
No. Each bear is assigned to one child for the duration of the program, supporting familiarity, ownership, and continuity while avoiding routine sharing.
Yes. Partner-approved content can be created for specific locations, activities, routines, age groups, and program goals.
Cubby uses a low-moisture, exterior-only cleaning process because the electronics are embedded. Every hospital, school, or organization reviews and approves the cleaning protocol before deployment.
We work with you to select a small group, approve content and locations, train staff, run the program for roughly 90 days, and evaluate together whether it should continue or expand.
Every child deserves moments that feel familiar, playful, and their own — even when life does not feel normal.
Imagine City is seeking hospitals, nonprofits, developmental organizations, schools, and family-support programs interested in co-designing a small Cubby Buddy pilot.
Cubby is not a toy sitting on a shelf. He is a companion for the visit — one who plays, teaches, encourages, and remembers.
Audible storybooks, quizzes, treasure hunts, fun facts, and playful learning keep children actively engaged.
Encourages turn-taking, role-play, teamwork, kindness, confidence, and connection with other children.
A lovable, living companion that greets children by name with permission and stays engaged throughout the visit.
Every child can check out their own bear for a one-on-one Cubby Buddy adventure.
Recognizes all Imagine City playhomes and provides educational information about hundreds of play items.
Four steps, none of which take longer than a minute at the front desk.
Stop by the front desk and a staff member checks out a Cubby Buddy for your child. Every bear has its own tag, so check-out takes seconds.
With your permission, Cubby learns your child’s first name and uses it while they play. Say no and Cubby simply says “friend” — everything else works exactly the same.
Cubby knows which playhome he has walked into and reacts to it — excited the first time, familiar after that — with facts, prompts, and ideas about what is around your child.
Return the bear on your way out. Any audio recorded with your child’s name is automatically deleted at checkout, and their points stay with your family forever.
Cubby has a voice, a personality, and a sense of where he is — all of it running on the bear your child is carrying.
One press on his paw triggers endless conversations depending on where he is. A double paw press starts a treasure hunt, and a long press starts a quiz.
Hundreds of jokes, fun facts, encouragements, and little musings mean Cubby is alive between games instead of silent until poked.
Cubby recognizes the playhomes and zones across the city and greets each one, so the same bear feels different in the fire station than in the market.
Pick him up, tip him, or give him a shake and Cubby responds — the play is physical, not just something happening on a screen.
Cubby names a real object somewhere in Imagine City. Your child hunts it down and taps Cubby’s paw to it to score the find.
Cubby reads the story out loud while the art appears on your phone — a real story time, with the bear doing the telling.
The games run on your phone or tablet while Cubby speaks the prompts out loud and celebrates by name. Difficulty is set automatically from your child’s age — and you can override it any time.
There is a practice mode for a child who wants to take their time, and a full mode that plays for points.
Colors, shapes, numbers, letters, and animals.
Picture-based, so a pre-reader can play it unassisted.
Cubby says the word, your child taps out the letters.
With Cubby talking through the steps whenever your child gets stuck.
Age-scaled, and Cubby reads out the words to find.
The companion app is optional — your child can play the entire visit with just the bear. It is there for the moments you want to be part of.
Record yourself and Cubby plays it back to your child mid-play. Grandparents, a parent away for work, a bedtime voice from a different time zone.
Type anything and Cubby speaks it in his own voice. Every message passes an automated safety check first.
Ask Cubby for a joke, a cheer, a fun fact, or an idea for what to play next — right when your child needs one.
Open a storybook on your phone and follow the pictures while Cubby reads it aloud.
A live badge shows your child’s running score as they earn it, plus volume and battery for their bear.
A named tab per child, added by scanning the QR code on their bear. No codes to type, no accounts to wrestle with.
Points are never reset and never taken back. A family that visits in September and comes back at Christmas picks up exactly where they left off — and every child in the family keeps their own score.
Watch the total climb live on your phone, or on the leaderboard screen in the city.
We know exactly how a talking toy sounds to a parent in 2026. So we built Cubby the other way around — these are not policies we could change later, they are the way the bear is built.
No last name, no address, no photo, no contact details — there is nowhere to put them.
Not “we do not share it” — the bear and the play session are built so an email address cannot reach them at all.
We ask at the front desk and we ask plainly. Without a yes, Cubby says “friend” and every single feature still works.
Every clip that contains your child’s name is deleted the moment the bear comes back to the desk.
Cubby’s speaker is deliberately near-field, so his voice stays with the child holding him.
Cubby is a bear who tells jokes, reads stories, and runs games. Conversational listening is not something he does.
This September, launching first at Imagine City Valencia. Our other locations follow after that — watch this page and our Instagram for dates.
Cubby is built to be played with children between 1 - 10 years of age — he speaks every instruction and the answers carry pictures. The quizzes, games, and jokes are age-tiered, so an older child gets harder questions from the same bear.
No. Cubby works on his own and your child can play the whole visit with just the bear. The companion app is there for grown-ups who want to send a message, read along, or watch the points.
Cubby Buddy check-out pricing will be announced closer to launch. Ask at the front desk on your next visit and we will tell you what we know.
Cubby is launching as an in-venue experience first. We will have more to share about bringing a Cubby Buddy home as we get closer — sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of this page.
That is the plan — each child checks out their own Cubby for a one-on-one adventure. Bears are limited at launch, so on busy days there may be a short wait.
Cubby Buddy launches first at Imagine City Valencia in Valencia Town Center, then rolls out to Palmdale and Lakewood. Come play with us before he arrives — and be there on day one.
