When 91³Ō¹Ļ senior Dan Jacobs signed up for an elective while studying in London last year, he wasnāt expecting that his course selection ā seemingly unrelated to his industrial design major ā would spark the idea for his BFA thesis project, or potentially help thousands of children.
Called the āRiverside Program,ā the course involved working with children with developmental disabilities.
āI wasnāt actively looking for a project,ā Jacobs says. āI took the class because developmental disabilities is a topic I didnāt know much about, and I saw a challenge.ā
The challenge Jacobs anticipated became more acute as he was struck by the reality that most of the toys the children played with were repurposed toys designed for mainstream students that didnāt cater to the needs of those with disabilities.
āI met with the teachers and therapists and talked to them about specialty toys,ā Jacobs says. āWhile there is a specialty toy market, there is a communication and social relationship between the child and the toy ā I wanted to bridge the gap and develop a toy that requires cooperative play between two people. One of the biggest questions I needed to ask is āWhat would prevent a child with autism from taking this toy in the corner by himself?āā
Called āHands On,ā the toy Jacobs created resembles a pair of ordinary gloves. These gloves can be used in several modes, each producing an electronic effect when activated in certain ways. āHands Onā only functions when played with in cooperation with another person.
The creative mode allows two children to each wear one of the gloves and try to produce sounds or activate lights when they align them in certain ways with each other. The game-play mode is prompt-based and requires the children to work together following common prompts, like bringing corresponding fingers together or moving them in a particular way. The therapy mode allows the unit to be manually controlled by the parent or therapist using a computing device to cater to the specific needs or areas of interest to the child."
āCreating a toy for children with autism made the most sense because socialization and communication are such big issues. āHands Onā can improve their social skills, communication abilities and restricted behaviors,ā Jacobs says.
Integrating several fields ā design, psychology, electrical engineering, video, graphic design and computer programming, developing āHands Onā was especially gratifying for Jacobs.
āOriginally, I was an FTT and design double major, and this project gave me the opportunity to utilize a broad skill set.ā
Jacobs hopes to eventually patent āHands Onā and bring the product to market. Meantime, heās weighing options for his immediate future ā which include graduate school, pursuing the project through , or possibly a career in the consulting side of product design.