LöSEN

Fall 2023 | 14 Weeks | Individual Project

Intent.

LÖSEN is a toy that offers three unique open play challenges that foster curiosity, creativity and problem solving skills in young developing minds.

Balance the platform using various weights. Adjust the fulcrum to increase the difficulty.

Balance.

Design a custom marble maze, then practice solving/playing with it over and over again.

Maze.

Build a custom track guiding the ball from a point A to B placed anywhere on the back wall.

Ball Track.

All Stored Together.

Designing For

General Anxiety Disorder

Subject Research.

    • distracted thinking

    • nervous overthinking

    • tongue stumbling

    • trouble listening

    • Play is essential for children’s learning and development of both their bodies and brains.

    • Play is a crucial part of childhood.

    • Open-ended play, where children can make decisions, is especially beneficial.

    • Encouraging children to ask "What should we create?" promotes creativity.

    • Around age three, children are ready for group or social play.

    • Group play helps children learn to share, take turns, and collaborate.

    • This type of play should be led by the children themselves, without adult intervention.

    • It’s important for children to learn how to play with others independently.

  • If curiosity makes us bold by nature, and anxiety can diminish that courage, is there a way in which we can harness that curiosity to help individuals overcome certain anxieties in moments where they need it most. For example, improv games (one of the most anxiety inducing activities if you don’t like improv) can teach us to handle uncertain situations.

GAD is a diagnosis that does not focus primarily on one specific symptom or cause of the symptom. Individuals with GAD will feel anxious through a multitude of situations.

Screen Time Insights.

Children who spend 5 or more hours per day on screens are 5 times more likely to experience developmental delays.

Strategy.

My design objective was to make a toy for young children that takes a preventive approach rather than a reactive approach to anxiety with these principles in mind.

Collaboration and Communication.

Success Requires Failure.

Creative Problem Solving.

Zero Screen Reliance to Participate.

Insights from Subject matter Experts.

    • Lead Teacher of Waldorf preschool ages 3 - 5

    • Waldorf gives kids the space and time to be kids

    • The Waldorf curriculum is based around open play, all their toys and activities have open ended stories for children to be creative.

    • Students gain skills in Analytical, creative, and flexible thinking as a result.

    • Kindness and compassion.

    • Independent, creative thinking.

    • Students leave Waldorf with high levels of moral maturity and self-esteem.

    • Mental Health Expert at Momentum

    • A lot of anxiety comes from not knowing how to problem solve.

    • When Children don’t know how to problem solve they can become sore losers.

    • When kids explore through play they are learning and growing.

    • Play challenges work great for learning how to be an individual and navigating situations.

    • finding the solution is the most important step for brain development installing an understanding of failure and success as part of the process.

Research.

Research showed that children thrive through experiential, interactive open play and yet this is severely lacking today in their upbringing. As naturally curious beings, we learn by experimenting—building fine motor skills, processing emotions, and developing communication.

User Persona.

Nikolas.

Age Five.

Kindergartner who struggles to socialize with his friends at school.

Does not have the confidence to take on challenges.

Favorite activity is playing games on an iPad.

Ideation.

Concept Models.

User Testing.

User Testing Insights.

  • The balance toy was very successful, the user had fun completing the challenge and wanted to play again. I learned I needed to find a way to keep the weights from sliding off the balance platform.

  • The user enjoyed playing with the ball maze and liked the idea of being able to make your own maze path. It was clear after testing that the handles should be moved to the ends of the toy for easier/collaborative play.

  • As expected the ball track challenge was too complicated for the user to complete. For these reasons the user did not wish to continue and wanted to play to with the other toys again. The test made it clear that this concept needed to be simplified.

Manufacturing.

This final model was fully functional, Including embedded sheet metal parts for the magnetic pieces to snap into place. Starting from a pile of 3D printed components, there was much care put into recreating the seamless organic forms.

Losën In action.