stimulating children's motor skills
Project
6th term BA | Exchange at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts | 2014 + refinement in 2017 | 5 weeks
Challenge
Since children started to use digital media frequently in their everyday life, they spend less time on exercising, being outside and hence training their motor skills.
A lot of products have been developed that would stimulate the children’s motor skills perfectly if there were used frequently. Unfortunately, most of them have little connection to children’s everyday lives and are therefore hardly used.
Result
Turtle stimulates children’s motor skills in an unobtrusive way - children can sit inside Turtle and use their beloved media whilst they are constantly keeping their balance and hence train their gross motor skills.
Moreover, it motivates them to put the media aside and start playing with turtle instead.
How can children effectively train their motor skills in a world full of electronic devices?
a simple solution to a complex problem
Details
Detachable cover
Turtle consists of an inner plastic shell and a fabric/felt cover. An integrated zipper allows you to take the fabric off to wash or even replace it.
Stackable
The stackability makes the transport from the production site to the store easy and environmentally friendly. Moreover, the product requires less space in the store or warehouse.
Injection molding
Turtle’s egg-like shape is designed for injection molding without requiring any additional sliders.
Stability
The U-shaped edge provides stability and makes the product more durable.
Handle
dedicated grip area
Moreover, it guarantees an airflow underneath the product if a kid decides to play “turtle” and is crawling with the product on its back.
immersing into the kids' world
Design challenge
How can children effectively train their motor skills in a world full of electronic devices?
Inspiration
How are motor skills nowadays stimulated?
I went to multiple playgrounds, toy stores and kindergardens to see how motor skills are stimulated nowadays. One of the most interesting aspects was stimulating balance, one of the main gross motor skills. Unfortunately the devices out on the market are either big and bulky or not well-integrated in the kids' life.
Initial prototypes
using oven-bake clay
How could the device be better integrated into kids' life?
What keeps kids from moving is a lack of inspiration or opportunity as well as spending to much time with easily accessible electronic devices and media in general. Hence I thought about combining those two experiences to inspire the children to move more. I build tiny prototypes to visualize my idea for a seat that the children can sit inside and constantly have to balance.
Ideation
key sketch
Research
measuring kids
Building prototypes
using cardboard, hot glue and tape
I built multiple rough cardboard prototypes to test how children react to it.
Testing
at one German elementary school and two Danish kindergartens
Repurposing the prototype
The kids immediately started playing with the cardboard prototype, both sitting inside as intended but also to play "turtle" by hiding underneath it with only the head stuck out. After the first tests I found out that the prototype was too big and built a smaller one. This made it easier for the kids to play with the product.
Model making
Oh well...
I built a construction to vacuum the shell of Turtle in size 1:1. I cut styrofoam boards into layers, sanded them to a nice soft shape and covered everything in gypsum to have a coat that is suitable for vacuum forming. After hours of sanding, my base was done.
The model fitted perfectly into the thermoforming machine with some space at the sides - I had measured it before and talked to the workshop responsible. Unfortunately, I would have needed an even bigger machine in order to get a good result. All tries failed and hence I decided to build a scale model instead.
Final design
redesigned in 2017
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