Work

Year: 2019

 

Gender neutral toy's for STEM

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While toys being crucial to kids, more and more recognition are made to the ability of toys in educating children in a softer manner. STEM toys are one of those focused to turn education into a fun activity that children would enjoy (Bdeir 2018).

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And as kids will be facing a more sexually opened up society while they will be massively impacted by the conceptual implications from it, toys should not impose any gender recognition limits to the children (Klass 2018).

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With those in mind, the toy created do not include any gender characters but using space objects including planets and satellites to educate about the galaxy.

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Goals and objectives

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With the galaxy being a vastly empty space but one that human kind is keen to discover, this toy aim to exploit the concept of space in human to maximise the creativity of STEM students.

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While not employing any gender suggestive ideas, the booklet included aim to introduce the planets to the children while they can creatively explore the look of the planets and the colour of the planets that is resulted from the characteristics of them.

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In the meantime, these soft-touch toys not only reduce the chance of injury but also encourage muscle movement to enhance their muscle strength and touch sensitivity (Stanford Children’s Health n.d.). Aimed at children aged 6 or above, these toys offer an entry point to the science area while helping them to learn under an entertaining way.

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Sustainability

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As toys are being frequently disposed after the children were grown up, the waste of material in toys are significant to the waste problem (Let Toys Be Toys 2019). With that in mind, the toys in creation are made with recyclable materials from other toys and daily wastes.

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The information booklet, for example, is made out of quality recycled white paper that does not sacrifice premium with sustainability. The plastic used in the stress ball material are also recycled from other slime-like and stretchy toys to reduce toy disposal while giving the materials a new life to serve as a toy.

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Packaging ideas

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As STEM students often feel frustrated during their learning process and rely on stress relieve measures to retain their aspirations to learning, the toys included are made out of stretchy and compressable material to prevent hurting themselves in cases of extreme behaviours (Malone 2019).

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In the meantime, the toys are aimed to maximise the creativity in them, which is often better in STEM students. Using UFO and rocket as the cap and the cone-shaped transparent container, the packaging aims to replicate the ideas as illustrated above to initiate a creative process among the students and help with the building of neural connections in enhancing learning efficiency.

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