BUT something interesting happened:
I had a comment on my presentation post! The best part is she is not any person: She is a mother of two adorable children with autism and she's blogging about them often. I know who my first playtesters are now :) Here's her blog:
http://whitterer-autism.blogspot.com/
Now I'm in between of making a playful device for people suffering from light depression and a tool for children with autism.
CHILDREN:
I've been searching what kids like to play with and came across with this entry:
“Children of most ages and genders love to build (lego, blocks, anything) and they love things that can go fast or do cool maneuvers. They can use bits of anything (junk, or interesting other bits) and turn them into anything they imagine. They love the process, and are often less concerned with the final product. Younger kids really need to move their large muscles when they play. Older kids use more of their small motor muscles, but also like to move around. Kids tend to like things that are multi-faceted…have lots of possibilities. (I’m thinking of rejects now: silly putty is fun for a few minutes, slinkies tend to gather dust once they’ve been made to descend a flight of stairs, etc.) But duct tape lasts forever. You can do ANYTHING with that stuff. Kids are very creative, really, so given raw materials, they like to make and design things. Things like paper airplanes fascinate some kids.
Many kids of the female persuasion tend to want to cut, draw, paste and color…and also knit, etc. as they gain dexterity. Boys also love to draw, and some tend to black and white renditions of vehicles, cartooning, war battles, etc. Some stereotyping, eh? Most kids are quite social. Almost all kids like games. The classics never fail to amuse: Checkers, chess, card games. Strategy possibilities and complex maneuvers in any game give it merit. Some kids shy away from the competitive aspect of games, but manage to invent ways to play games where there is cooperation and accumulation of cool ideas for strategy rather than direct competition (winner, loser).
Kids love group games and so we play them every morning. Some involve chanting and/or music. Some favorite games are: Kooseeki, In Plain sight, “Down By the Banks”, A cold wind blows, Zoom, Alibi, and many more. If you want me to describe any of these games to you in more detail, I’d be happy to.
The role playing stuff. Much of this happens spontaneously with kids in any kind of play. “I’ll be the _______, and you be ________” etc. Many classrooms for small kids are set up to encourage this (House corners, etc.) Just thought I’d mention that. Kids are natural actors and learn empathy from stepping into a different character.
These interesting in-sights from a teacher helped me a lot in thinking about how children play with anything.
ADULTS:
I was about to go with a toy for 18 and up that aims for smoothing depression of life.
There are two inspirations for this toy:
One is myself: I've been in this very interesting state where I realize I'm growing up and having more and more responsibilities in my life and greater problems when I used to have as a kid. Even though I have my cute little toys to play with, sometimes I just need someone who can listen to me and someone to talk about stupid topics.
The second: When Tracy spoke about her depression-relieving jacket, I realized that I'm not the only one thinking about it. So this must be a bigger problem than I thought
On the other hand I would really like to work with something related to kids as well.
Well, being in a dilemma is better than a “creator's block”, right?
REFERENCES/INSPIRATIONS:
http://www.frogdesign.com/?p=21
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/8811/27877/01244338.pdf
http://tuftsjournal.tufts.edu/archive/2002/june/features/toy_story.shtml
Heepon interacting with voice and movement.
http://univ.nict.go.jp/people/xkozima/infanoid/video/keepon-contact-joint.mpg
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn11434&feedId=online-news_rss20
Concept:
Samsung's new PCs
http://geekologie.com/2007/04/samsung_concept_pcs.php
Blood pool pillow
http://geekologie.com/2007/04/blood_puddle_pillows_look_like.php
Hamster- papershredder
http://geekologie.com/2007/04/hamsterpowered_paper_shredder.php
Toys:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredphotos35/
Soundball: (the so-what factor)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqMeVleitNo
Sony's danging Robot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QRIO
Roboraptor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roboraptor
When the familiar target audience for toys are taken out, all we're left are 18 and up. Usually these kind of toys refer to sexual content:
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/grownups/
http://www.nbc10.com/news/10432522/detail.html
4 comments:
Golly! I turned up in my own 'autism' google alert. This must be my 15 seconds of fame!
Thank you for your kind words.
'Play therapy' for adults, children or people with a disability is far more complex than most people imagine, well done you.
Cheers
Hey Cicek - guess what, small world. I just found out today that the soundball was created by my MFADT friend's husband - how random is that?!
This is his website:
http://www.alekstevens.com/
The ball is bluetooth interacting with Max/MSP.
Oops, posted too soon and didn't write my name... See you in Major Studio on Monday! ;)
Hi there. This Aleksei Stevens, said DT friend's husband, creator of the soundball. My old URL, which you link to in the comment above, was unfortunately purchased by someone who has uploaded some very nasty and offensive text and images to it. If you could see your way to either deleting that comment, or changing the link to direct to my new site: www.alekseistevens.com, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks! (alekophone@gmail.com)
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