Context| Users | Goals
Context| Users | Goals
Embedded Files
This Dream Toy project is a product by me and my friend XiaoYi Zhong at Harvard Graduate School of Education. We designed and created an educational toy set for a child in the neighborhood.
The project was kicked off by our search for a kid who can volunteer to join us. We luckily found River, a 5-year-old Chinese American boy who is a huge fan of Lego, loves doing Math, has orange as his favorite color, and is fascinated about solving puzzles. River wished to get a tiger that can transform into different animals such as a bird, a fish, or a dinosaur.
Our goal was to design a toy set that not only is fun and can live to the child's wish, but also can foster the child's intellectual strengths and teach him something new. "It must be River's dream toy", we told ourselves. However, with the humble number of technologies that we had been introduced to at that point, this was a huge challenge for us. After discussions and multiple iterations, we finally landed on an idea about a tangram set that can help River learn more about spatial reasoning, creative thinking, and logical thinking as well as have fun either alone or with another kid.
Designing Process| Product
Designing Process| Product
We went through many different iterations before landing on a final product.
As River was a big fan of Lego, we first thought of creating a Lego-like toy set with multiple pieces that can be interlocked to create different animals. We lasercut acrylic to create an orange tiger that's formed from multiple polygons. However, the design turned out to be unsafe for children as the polygons had very sharp edges. Also, it's tricky to use the same polygons that form a tiger to make other animals. [iteration 1]
After that, we decided to do a tangram set by lasercutting woods (after doing an iteration on paper - iteration 2). We encountered the same safety challenge, and fortunately found some left-over felt in the lab to experiment on our design (iteration 3). The product was further developed with additional features such as a forest board with detachable features (mountains, trees, animals eyes, etc.) and plug-in features (lego blocks that allow other blocks to build upon them). All the detachable and plug-in features are stored in a lasercut box with River's name carved on its top. We also managed to make a guidebook that helps the child learn: there are graded challenges and a sticker set for the child to record his wins in his diary. [iteration 4,5]
We then brought our toy to the child's mother, who's also a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, for review. She made some great suggestions for improvement. For example, she suggested that the toy set would look great if the animals could give a 3-D impression. She also recommended us to make the plug-in more open as their family has a 3-D printer at home that allows them to make their own plug-ins. We then made 2 other sets of tangram of different sizes per her first suggestion. We decided not to move on with the second suggestion due to technological challenges. [iteration 6]
Iteration 1
Iteration 5
Iteration 6
River's fun box
Detachable features
Plug-in features
Detachable features
River's challenge booklet can be viewed from the carousel below.
Theoretical Background
Theoretical Background
The "Low Floors, High Ceilings, and Wide Walls" principles by Professor Mitchell Resnick at MIT were followed strictly for the design of our product.
"Low Floors" means the product needs to have an easy entry so the child would not be demotivated. We followed this principle by making sure that the first challenges are relatively easy for River to deal with. Hints about all the animals that he would need to build with the tangram blocks are printed with full colors in the guide book. The child could just follow the guide book to make these animals.
"High Ceilings" means the product must give room for the child to grow and have the opportunity to deal with harder challenges and explore his potentials. This is to ensure that the child will not get bored. We followed this principle by increasing the level of difficulty for the challenges: we gradually removed the colors from the guide book and replaced those colors with black. That means the child would get differnt number of hints for the answer, depending on the level of difficulty. The grand challenge is to make a tiger without any hints from the guide book.
"Wide walls", according to Mitchell Resnick, allows for the horizontal growth of the child as the product allows a variety of possibilities to play with it. In other words, the child can be creative in how to play with the toy. With our toy set, the child can own his creation and enjoy his complete freedom in adding/plugging out detachable features.
Feedback | Reflections
Feedback | Reflections
River and his older brother Forest loved this toy set! However, if we had the opportunity to go back and improve it, I would say we might need to make it a bit less challenging for River. After our first interview with the kid, in which he was super smart and a bit precocious, we might have been biased. Also, testing the game with River alone or with River and a child of his age might be a better idea than testing it with Forest, who is 4 years older than River OR we might have needed to instruct both children on how to cooperate when playing with the toy set so that the older one can be guiding and helping the little one more.
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