AVA GARFINKEL
This project was the final project for the first semester of the MADE program. We were tasked to create groups of 4 and told to "make a tool," the rest was up to us. Groups were made amongst the students based on common interests and goals. My personal goal for this project was to take the lead on all creative design parts of a product, and I was interested in making a tool for children due to the unique challenges that come with designing for kids. Based on this, I ended up in a multidisciplinary team of 4 students with backgrounds in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and project management. Starting off broadly defined, our goal was to create a tool that would help children learn a skill that is otherwise difficult for children to learn on their own.
CONCEPT
As a group, we started our project by individually coming up with ideas for directions this project could go in. We then played a game taught to us by our professor who used to work at Hasbro called "Blue Sky," where we each presented our ideas and then sorted them as a group. This helped us quickly determine what all of us were looking to create, and we ended up with three core concepts: a set of children's kitchen tools, a tool that makes it easier for children to brush their teeth, and a game that teaches children basic logic taught in coding.
Once we had our three core concepts decided, we created pros and cons lists to help us choose just one to focus on. Through this process, we settled on creating a game that teaches children basic logic, as it was the idea we were all most excited about and addressed our initial goal of creating a tool to help children learn something they wouldn't be able to otherwise. Even though our concept was decided, we still didn't know what this game would look like. To figure it out, we went through several rounds of sketching, presenting, researching, and accepting critique to help up refine our ideas.
My initial sketches
Throughout the process of iteration and receiving critique, we were consistently asked the same question: how does your game teach logic in a way that children can't just learn on their own? The idea of cause and effect is not unique to coding, and while the games we were designing would be "fun," none of them necessarily offered something novel. As part of our research, we saw what other coding and programming related games already existed, and found that many of the games were maze-based.
By studying coding-themed games that already existed, we came to a realization: the logic of cause and effect is not unique to coding, but the process of procedure, sequence, and debugging is. An important part of coding is that all "instructions" need to be written in the correct order prior to running the code, and once the code runs, only then can you go back and debug problem areas. This process is obvious when laid out in the form of a maze game- all directions are written out at once, and only after running the program and allowing the whole procedure to be carried out can you go back and debug problem areas. With this new insight, we began thinking of non-maze scenarios that could follow a similar process. After more sketching and discussion, we found that cooking is a process that similarly requires procedure, sequence, and debugging. This is where we got the idea for the Little Chef.
Little Chef would be a game that utilizes the natural procedure, sequence, and debugging involved with cooking to make a fun game that would help teach children the principles of coding. In this game, children would choose from given recipe cards with instructions on each one for how to make a meal. By placing tiles onto a separate command board, they would instruct a "chef" character where to go and what to do at each station. For example, to make a burger, the child would have to instruct the chef to pick up the meat, cook it on the stove, and serve it on the plate, as well as prepare all other listed ingredients correctly. The game would have different stations: ingredient stations for each ingredient in every recipe, a stove, a cutting board, an end table where the prepared ingredients should be placed, and obstacles. The game would also be completely modular, allowing children to rearrange all the stations on the board to make new layouts.
RESEARCH
We started with some preliminary research on children's toys to inform design decisions moving forward. This involved looking at current toys that exist on the market as well as user interviews with parents. By looking at the market, we were able to find that the age group of kids we were designing for should be in the 7-11 range. This was based on what our game would require children to do as well as the fact that children in older age groups prefer playing games with a set goal (as opposed to free play). We also found that based on this age range, color was not a strong draw for children in terms of picking toys, so we were free to pick colors that we thought would best suit the aesthetic. In addition, after speaking to some parents, we discovered how important it was that our toy was not on a screen. There are already many coding-based games for children on computers and tablets, but if parents want their kids to take a break from screen time, there are limited options.
PROCESS
Our build process began with us playing a very simplified version of our game to figure out all of the user interactions. This was an incredibly important step, as it helped us define problems in our game design that we hadn't initially thought of. It also helped us simplify our game so that it was more intuitive and easier to play.
After playing with our paper model, we finalized all the stations and tiles that would be needed in our game. The stations included ingredients, stove, cutting board, end, and obstacles. The tiles included take, put, cook, chop, move, and numbers (to indicate how many positions need to be moved). I started initially designing the stations and tiles in Adobe Illustrator, and then moved to designing the CAD models using Fusion 360 and Rhino. The largest design considerations for the stations were that each station should look like what it was portraying and the geometry of the station should clearly indicate what part of the station was the "front." The ingredient station would look the same for each ingredient and would be distinguished by an icon of the ingredient on top.
Next I had to design the ingredient icons that would sit on top of the ingredient stations. While I initially wanted the icons to be 3D printed like the stations and the tiles would be, it was found that the level of detail required to make the ingredient icons would be lost if 3D printed. Therefore, I decided that a combination of laser cutting and laser engraving on wood would yield the best results. I created 6 different ingredient icons for the 6 different ingredient stations that would be in our initial game.
Stove station
Cutting board station
Ingredient station
Chop tile
Cook tile
Put tile
Take tile
Move tile
Cook tile
Initial stove station
Initial cutting board station
Initial ingredient station
Initial obstacle station
Initial end station
Obstacle station
End station
The tiles were also designed on Fusion 360 and Rhino, with the largest design considerations being that there should be as little reading as possible and they have to be big enough to be read by our camera.
Bread icon
Macaroni icon
Lettuce icon
Tomato icon
Cheese icon
Meat icon
The last thing to design were the recipe cards. We had determined that we wanted three recipes ranging in difficulty and using the 6 ingredients we had decided on. Therefore, we chose to have recipes for salad, mac & cheese, and a hamburger. Each recipe card has a photo of the meal being prepared along with a star rating to indicate difficulty. In addition, each recipe card has brief instructions on how to make the meal as well as icons for what ingredients are required. For example, the salad recipe indicates that the chef will have to chop the lettuce and chop the tomatoes in order to finish the meal.
Salad card
Mac & cheese card
Hamburger card
Now that all the components were designed, the last thing to do was to assemble the game.
ASSEMBLY
The most time consuming part of the assembly was printing and painting all the stations and tiles. Once all the stations and tiles were 3D printed, they were puttied over and sanded to create a better texture for the paint to adhere to. They were then spray painted their base colors before I went in and painted all the details with acrylic paint. Tags also had to be added to the back of the tiles so that they could easily be read by the camera.
3D printed stations
Spray painted stations
Spray painted tiles
Puttied stations
Detailed station painting
Computer vision tags on tiles
While the lead mechanical engineer designed the game board and tile rack, I helped with the assembly and painting. This involved laser cutting and 3D printing all the pieces as well as installing the track that the chef would move along.
Game board assembly
Painted game board
Tile rack assembly
Painted tile rack
Assembled tile rack and game board
Once the assembly was complete, the remainder of the work was left to the mechanical and electrical engineers who were responsible for ensuring that the game was fully functional and ready to display.
PRODUCT
The final product is a fully functioning game for 7-11 year olds to help introduce them to the basic principles involved with coding. To play, the user first chooses a recipe and then arranges the board in any way they'd like including all the necessary components on the recipe card. Once set up, the user can place tiles in the tile rack in order of left to right and top to bottom in order to direct the little chef around the board. In order to test their code, the user simply presses the play button on the top of the tile rack and the chef automatically moves around the board as according to the order of tiles read. Sounds and lights come from the board as indicators of what action the chef is currently taking or what ingredient the chef is holding. In addition, the tile rack has lights to indicate which step the chef is currently completing so that the user can easily follow along. If an error occurs, such as the chef tries to perform an action without being in front of the correct station or the chef bumps into an obstacle, a red light will flash and an error sound will occur before the chef automatically moves back to its starting position. At that point, the user can go through the instructions they wrote out on the tile rack and debug as necessary until the chef successfully completes the recipe.
My contribution as lead designer on this team led to a visually appealing and stimulating game for children. The station designs clearly indicate what each station is for, and the tile design is easily readable and provides a great tactile experience. When presenting our toy, we received compliments from both parents and children that the designs and colors were fun, interesting, and engaging, and that this toy would be something that people want to have in their homes.
