What is your favorite toy? Maybe it’s a stuffed animal or doll, or a remote control car or robot. Are you thinking of a ball, or a wind-up toy, or a talking action figure or a race car? Perhaps it’s something that helped you learn something new, or depicted your favorite character. No matter what toy you chose, they all have something in common - they were all designed by a team of people considering a wide variety of factors to maximize the fun! As a toy engineer, Ariel Shostak understands what goes into this process.

Working with designers who focus on the overall look of the toy, Ariel defines the functionality, selects materials and determines how it will be made and assembled, while ensuring all these choices meet safety standards and cost targets to make it affordable for consumers.

Ariel is a mechanical engineer with over fifteen years of experience developing a wide range of products, from government and public safety communication products to consumer electronics, baby gear, and toys. She specialized in Design Thinking during her graduate studies and takes extra effort to consider the people who will use--and potentially misuse-- the products she designs. For products that children use, like toys, it is especially important to also ensure that they are safe.

Design Thinking, or Human Centered Design, is the process of considering and empathizing with the people who will use products or services and is an important part of designing something that people will use. When designing toys, Ariel considers the age, interest, and ability of the end user. She must also be aware of potential hazards, such as small parts that can be harmful for small children, or possible misuses of the toy that could cause harm or a bad user experience.

A major part of Design Thinking is interviewing or observing people who will use the product. In the ASK stage for the Engineering Design Process, the goal is to develop or confirm the problem statement and find out the users’ most important needs. The EXPERIMENT stage is your chance to get feedback on your ideas and mock-ups to see if your concept is easy to use and works the way you envisioned. You can incorporate feedback you receive in the IMPROVE stage as you repeat the process. Each step gets you closer to a product that people will love!

Engineering and Design Thinking

What happens when engineers design without considering the end user experience? Glass ketchup bottles were notoriously difficult to use. Sewer grates with horizontal grates are hazardous to bicycles with skinny tires. The lack of design thinking can result in momentary confusion, too, such as when door handles that typically indicate a pull outward are installed on doors that push inward.

These examples highlight how important it is for educators to simultaneously teach students engineering and empathy.

Below are photographs that show how builders failed to consider the walker's wants and needs when designing sidewalks.

These images, which come from the article Least Resistance: How Desire Paths Lead to Better Design, demonstrate how engineers can make more informed decisions by observing the behavior of walkers. Using observed behaviors to improve a design is a critical component of design thinking.

Gift Giving Activity

In this activity, adapted from OMSI's The Perfect Present and Stanford University's The Gift Giving Project, students will interview a classmate and use information from that interview to design and build a gift for the classmate.

Materials

• Colored pencils, crayons or markers.

• Object Cards, printed, double-sided (from OMSI's The Perfect Present)

• An assortment of building materials, such as:

  • Pipe cleaners

  • Cotton balls

  • Rubber bands

  • Foam sheets

  • Paper clips

  • Straws

  • Binder clips

  • Cups and plates

  • Cardboard

  • Paper towel rolls

  • Recycled plastic containers

The Engineering Design Process

Educators can use several versions of the Engineering Design Process (EDP). The version below, from NASA's education page, uses six succinct words to describe the six steps in the EDP.

• Students begin at the ASK step when they consider "what is the problem I want to solve?"

• The PLAN step is crucial. Students can plan with a drawing or a bullet list of steps. Students should have their plan approved by the educator before being given access to the building material.

• In the IMPROVE step, students receive feedback from their peers, their teacher and through data gathered during the experiment.

• Emphasize that the EDP is non-linear and that students are not "finished" once they complete their first design. There is always room for improvement!

Credit: NASA STEM Engagement