POULSBO — As December had just gathered itself, embarking on the quest for Christmas, former teacher, inventor turned toy-making wizard Rick Hartman transformed Poulsbo Elementary’s Family Fun Night into Santa’s Workshop.

During school Dec. 7, Hartman presented two assemblies (to cover the entire school’s student body) that were “all about inventions, creativity, toys and using your imagination,” he said.

“Then at night, we put out all the tables and rolled up our sleeves and used hammers and saws and safety goggles to build a real nifty toy,” he added.

Elves of all ages piled into and overflowed the room which the school had set up for the 6 p.m. session. Poulsbo Elementary parents, students, siblings, grandparents and staff gathered in the spirit of the season to learn science under the guise of toy construction.

“There was lots of pounding and hammering and toy making going on,” said Poulsbo Elementary principal Jeanette Wolfe with a smile. “I’m not sure who had more fun, the kids or the parents that were helping … or both.”

Hartman led the group through the manufacturing process of a toy he now calls “The Gravity Man” — an 8-inch gravity-defying figurine made from a clothes pin, two shortened rulers, a few chunks of plywood and a small bolt swinging from a wire.

When finished, the Gravity Man seemed to fight the earth’s pull, almost dancing atop the toy, due to clever use of counterweight and balance points.

“It’s actually a science lesson disguised as a toy,” Hartman said. “Kids are having a blast building it and experimenting with it, while also experiencing some of the very important science that we expect of them in school.”

Hartman, a former teacher in the Bellevue School District, said he has been to Poulsbo Elementary three times during the past six years and he expects he will return. That would likely be beneficial for both North End students and Hartman himself.

“Tens of thousands of times every year, you can almost literally see the light bulbs going off in kids’ imaginations as they are tinkering and experimenting,” he said.

And students at Poulsbo Elementary were no different.

“The next day, they’d brought their toys to school and were so proud of what they had made,” Wolfe said. “We even had little ones not even in kindergarten, but siblings of students that were pounding away.”

After the workshop, Hartman had students coming up to him, sharing their excitement and telling him all about how they wanted to be a toy maker when they grew up.

“My message to them is: you don’t have to grow up to be a toy maker you already are a toy maker because in my mind and in my heart and in my experience … I’ve come to know that all of us already have the ability to invent to create to solve problems to dream up big ideas and to make important discoveries,” Hartman said.