Menu
Our project aims to design a safe bed for a child with autism, addressing the critical need for a secure sleeping environment after the family was denied a suitable bed. The bed will incorporate features that ensure the child’s safety, such as reinforced sides and a calming design to reduce anxiety. We are focusing on creating a bed that prevents injury and provides a sense of security and comfort. The design process involves close collaboration with the family to understand their needs and preferences. Ultimately, this project seeks to provide peace of mind for the family, knowing their child is safe and well-cared for during sleep.
Normal beds and bedframes have many spots where a child could injure themselves, and will not prevent from roaming around during the night. Our goal is to address these issues for a young girl with autism. The proposed design needs to be sufficiently safe, easy to clean, and enclosed to prevent the girl from roaming free during the night.
The family had mentioned they were denied a cubby bed by their insurance, so a large part of our design was based on the cubby bed as well as their current enclosed bed for her sibling. 
Concept 1 is a crossed slat design, similar to Lincoln logs. They will cross over each other and lock into the center slat. This Concept creates an easy way to attach an optional 5th leg in the center for extra stability and strength. This frame design is made entirely of wood, making it cheap but strong. Additionally, the all wood design would be the heavier of our options. However, since the selected design will need to endure lots of jumping, this may need reinforcement.
Concept 2 is similar to design 1, though it loses the center wooden slats and replaces those with metal crossbars. This design uses a popular construction method to allow a solid and easy connection between metal and wood. It uses a method of cutouts and face walls to create a flat façade while also providing strong connection points for the load bearing metal cross bars.
The hooks allow for easy connection of the large fabric to the post while
also giving an easy way to tension in the fabric making it more rigid.
This will allow the user to remove the wall from the outside for cleaning.
The fabric snap fasteners are for connecting the front face fabric to the large
back wall without the use of Velcro, which deteriorates over time and use.
