Prototype for research Digital Life presented at Expo Minor 'Makers Lab'
11-07-2019
In June the minor 'Makers Lab' organised an exposition to present the work of their students. Some of them also supported the project Toys4Therapy of Tamara Pinos, researcher at the Digital Life Centre.
This minor aims to address value systems and conventions that inform product designs, technologies and branding strategies through critical making: who benefits from a given design? Who doesn't? Could it be different? By asking such questions it could be possible to open a design space with room for differences and alternatives on a conceptual ánd product level.
The project Toys4Therapy recommends and encourages children with a spastic hand - as a result of cerebral palsy - to do excercises at home on a daily basis. But these physical therapies for 8-12 year olds are often uninviting, repetitive and boring. Also, current tools are too expensive and only available at dedicated rehabilitation centers.
Toys4Therapy brings together digital and physical interfaces that re-center the fun in play, accounting for the ability and therapeutic needs of children with cerebral palsy. Therefore the students of this minor made a prototype called 'Colour Touch' - which has similarities with the game Twister - to make the physical therapy for these children more exciting and thus more effective. We are greatful that these students were enthusiastic to cooperate with Digital Life!
'Together we make the invisible visible, the intangible tangible and the unthinkable imaginable'.