Our project is to create and adapt switches for toys that cater to and entertain a variety of children with special needs.
Our contact works with children with a variety of needs including limited vision, mobility, and strength. She mentioned that a wider variety of switch-adapted toys would be more entertaining and engaging for the children. Currently, they only have a few switch-adapted toys and are beginning to find them repetitive and uninteresting. To develop toys to fulfill varying needs, our project aims to create fun, accessible switches for toys that cater to the children’s needs. The scope of our project includes three toys. Several toys were specifically requested by our contact to be adapted. We selected two exiting toys to adapt and will design one custom-made toy. The toys we selected to adapt will have switch designs that are suitable for all mobility stages. The custom-made toy design for this project will consist of a large fidget board that includes many toys for all varieties of children’s needs. These include lights, sounds, and movements for low visibility, easy to move toys and switches for weaker strength, and gross and fine motor toys.
Our contact requested some of the toys to play music or make noise, so we made sure to specify our design that the toys’ decibel levels do not exceed 95db. This parameter can be verified with a decibel meter. Our contact also sent us a list of 8-10 choices of toys she wanted us to adapt. She specifically mentioned that the children prefer bright green and yellow, and she requested that the toys include movement, vibration, music/sounds, and lights. These sensory aspects of the toys will entertain children with limited vision, strength, and mobility.
As stated previously, our group was given a selection of 8-10 pre-existing toys to switch-adapt, of which we chose two and additionally decided upon a custom piece to fabricate as well. Given the relative simplicity of the process, not much research was required for the selected toys. Our challenge lies in making the Air Toobz and the Fubbles Bubble Machine engaging and accessible for the children – something more interesting than just a simple button. Thus, most research pertained to the switch-adaption process and to the actual function of the toys themselves.
Our custom piece – the fidget board – on the other hand, required extensive research, leading to a multitude of possibilities of content configurations that can be included in the system. As of now, we know we want a mix of fine and gross motor skills, to ensure relevancy for any child who wishes to engage with it, some images that piqued our inspiration pictured here.
It should be noted that the below three “Concept Designs” are all planned to be made – our contact specifically requested multiple smaller objects rather than one large one.
Fubbles Bubble Machine: This is a simple pre-existing toy, requested by our contact, that activates via a small button on its backside. To adapt this, we plan to collect a larger button bypass to make it easier for children with limited mobility to activate it.
Air Toobz Evo Ball Cannon: This pre-existing toy was requested by our contact to adapt. The toy is composed of a tube with balls that shoot out due to air pressure. The air pressure is controlled by a dial. To adapt this dial to make it more entertaining and accessible, we will replace the small dial with a large steering wheel. For children with limited mobility, there will be an adapted switch available to activate the toy.
This custom-made toy is based off of a large variety of existing fidget boards. There are several configurations possible for our design. The most favorable design will have two boards, hinged at the top. Each board will have estimated dimensions of 4 ft x 3 ft. One side of the toy will include a collection of gross motor toys. There is also a possible interior design between the boards to include glow in the dark components and curtains at both openings.
Our team has decided to continue pursuing the design for the fidget board and switch adapted design for the bubble toy. Our team will still switch adapt the air cannon toy, but we have pivoted our methods to be more electrically actuated instead of mechanically actuated.
The fidget board will be composed of multiple wooden boards, approximately 3 ft x 6 ft in total size. It will have a stand attached so that is will lean slightly back. It will include: a dead bolt, latch & door of wood, door hinge, large zipper, gear train, sliding tile puzzle, door stopper, octopus mechanism, labyrinth, embedded roller, large fidget spinner, mechanical buttons, abacus, and many lights and sounds. Most of these pieces will be 3D printed, some will be bought and applied (such as the door stopper), and some (such as those made of wood) will be manufactured/cut in the on-campus workshop.
The bubble toy will have an adaptive switch that will increase or decrease the fan speed according to how fast the button is pressed in succession similar to a dynamo mechanism. This switch will be attached through a jack into the toy that can also be used to connect a capacitive switch for children with limited mobility.
The air cannon will include an encasing for the original air cannon fan that will be attached to a large stand with a steering wheel. The steering wheel will be wired through the stand, to the air cannon fan to adjust the fan speed and increase or decrease the power at which the balls are launched. The stand and the wheel will be 3D printed with PLA filament. This will also be equipped with a jack to connect a capacitive switch.
After computation, we found the gear ratio to be 2.08:1. This means the last gear turns one time for every 2.08 turns of the input gear. A low ratio like this means that there is not a lot of input torque required to spin the gears and that the last gear turns enough to remain visually interesting when the input gear is turned.
The fidget board is our primary focus, so we want to analyze it and its design to ensure its safety, given that it is custom and thus we are directly accountable for its use. We will likely base our design off of the tipping force; specifically – the angle such that in the event that our proposed 80* angle is too great, which could lead to tipping. Should the center of gravity need to be lower, we can quickly pivot and utilize a lower–angled design.
This was a very complicated piece to consider, with lots of moving components. For instance, the Rube-Goldberg machine has animations that are actuated by the push buttons, and we needed to understand how that would work on paper before applying it in real life. The benefit from this analysis is that we have a clear visualization of how the wiring is going to happen such that we can understand what power rails we need to send to where – an overview map if you will. Previously we weren’t going to use a slip ring, but since it is a rotating part that needs to be powered, it was added after analysis.
