Children’s Toy Environment

This project focuses on the design of the children’s toy environment. This environment is designed for playing with a Velcro Dart Board. It is majorly focused to be used by both parents and the children in their early ages from five four years old and below. For the parents case the children’s toy environment is necessary to ensure that there the children causes little disturbance in the whole house during the day. This project will be the parents’ help the children learn how assemble and dismantle different parts of the toys that are in the toy yard. Upon completion this project ideas can be sold to the parents to build a toy yard for their children. This can be used as the basis for innovation and creativity for the children at their early ages, to help them learn how to use the technology to develop their careers at early ages.

As part of this project, the main target being the parents with young children it will act both an area for relaxation for the children and ensure that the kids are always busy within the yard. Although this project has been targeted for young children, parents can redesign the area as per their satisfaction and the age of the children. The older children become the more sophisticated they become; therefore, changing the toys with the ideal components that the kid will ever use in the future can be a more projectile idea.

Areas of investigation

Since there have been advance in technology in the recent past the area of consideration should be technology to ensure more advances in technology are made. This means that the parents have to preserve at least a section the house or construct a yard that the children can use with the toys and ensure maximum supervision is reduced. In order to ensure that there is less or no commotion in the area the toys used should have considerably less weight that the kids are able to lift without straining. Also, due to cost of the toys therefore the smaller and lighter toys are relatively cheaper compared to the bigger and heavier toys. In addition, for aesthetics purpose the shapes and the colour of the toys and also the room painting should be designed to accommodate the moods of the children to capture their interest.

To capture the analysis of the design feature of this project, there is a need to collect some data from parents from different economic background. Another feature to consider is questionnaires for the purpose getting enough information from both the children and the parents on the project implementation. Apart from these, survey will be done to capture a sample number of the children within a given society with respect to their interests and that of their parents. This survey may be achieved through education on technological improvement for the future inventions.

Criteria to Evaluate Success

            Since this project is targeted to capture the interest of both the parent and the children, it is therefore important to ensure that the location is well aerated. Secondly, the area should not be away from the parents so as to ensure that the parents have eye on their kids. Sometimes different parent may not have had the chance to capture the idea at the beginning of the project; therefore it is necessary to have the area be in a strategic the location. The type of toys recommended for use should be focused on capturing the interest of the others to the same for their children. What the children will be introduced to should be made to ensure that it has a positive impact on their development and that of their parents by an environment that the parents would admire from them.

            From the data analysis and survey from children, most children are very active at their early ages, so 75% of the children if introduced to technology at that age can make be emotionally attached to this idea. Having used the toys in assembling of cars, small bicycles, and robots this model has proved to the best for kids to learn how to assemble the dart board with time provision to incorporate the ideas and use them. This can be focused to develop new designs from the children related to their interest, which in turn can result to development of the children both mentally and emotionally.

Project management

Action and Time Plan

The table below is a presentation of the action time plan for the project development from project start to finish.

Activity	Time estimates in weeks		Expected time
	Optimistic	Normal
Write proposal	2wks	3wks	3wks
Design phase	2wks	4wks	4wks
Design review	2wks	3wks	3wks
Design testing	1wk	2wks	2wks
Final implementation	4wks	5wks	5wks
Present the project	1wk	1wk	1wk

The chart below is a simple Gantt presentation of the action time plan for the project development from project start to finish

Activity

Activity no.

Precedence

duration

May-2011

June-2011

Jul-2011

August-2011

Sep-2011

Write proposal

A

0

3wks

Design phase

B

A

4wks

Design review

C

B

3wks

Design testing

D

C

2wks

Final implementation

E

D

5wks

Present the project

F

E

1wk

 

Finance Plan

The Velcro dart board materials are inexpensive and therefore the cost of the design is financially friendly thus, ensuring children at less expense. The total cost of the whole Velcro dart board is approximately $10 for the mini board and if planning to design a larger design it can cost up $50 including the purchase and design of the balls. 

Project development

            This project has been developed from the knowledge of the play ground incorporated with indoor gaming and toy playing. I came up with the idea of creating an environment which ensures the children safety and ensure that the parents are comfortable and they can monitor the activities related to their children. With the indoor playing the parent can get maximum time to supervise their kids while playing the darts to prevent them from poking each other with the darts. The Velcro dart board games use round balls that have strips of attached to them. These balls are supposed to stick on the board when thrown to the board. It is therefore ideal for the parents to introduce their kids to this game at a slower pace and thus with time they be able to acclimatise to the use of the real darts. These darts are supposed to be a source of entertainment for the kids since they have colourful face and colourful balls. It is also based on the fact that it is fun for kids peeling the balls and playing again.  Stick Velcro on the board and paint on the board a bull’s eye and have the children throw the balls to target the bull’s eye. 

 

Figure 1: An ideal design of Velcro dart board

 

Consideration of design factors

To ensure that the design meets the right criterion for manufacture, it necessary to put into consideration that the kids needs artistic exploration to learn how to design and play. This design meets the parents’ requirements to ensure that the children have total satisfaction for the toy environment. Therefore, the design functions as an area to ensure children are busy also provides an aesthetic advantage to please to moods of the children. In matters relating to the safety of the design, it is clear that the toys to be used should be light in weight for ease to move within the environment. Also, the area is well aerated therefore there cannot be cases of aeration within the toy yard for the children.

Ergonomics of the design entails the design for the average size that targets the children as the main audience of the activities involved in the use of the toys. Related to this it’s important to have researched on the hand and body sizes of the children to used the design. This is in relation the children’s ability to use the darts while playing with the dart board.

Quality as a factor related to durability, it therefore important to have design that is well vast on the needs for the comfort and entertainment of the children. This design has focused on the durability of the parts should not be easily broken, therefore the ideal materials use to design the toys in this project are paper foils.      

Research and experimental testing

The table below is a sequence of activities involved in testing the design

 

Test	Aim	Method	Results	Conclusion(s)
shooting	To test strength of the material against rapture	Use of real sharp darts	Can withstand the punching effect of the darts	Material ideal for the design
Burning	To have biodegradable materials	Burning the material with fire	Material completely burn with less carbon emission	The material are environmentally benign for the project

 

Identification & Justification of Ideas and Resources

Through brainstorming the ideas about this design are from the past children playing grounds minimised to be setup indoors for safety of the children against the environmental obstruction. From the tests conducted on the project it has been proved that the project is viable to be used in any society. This is well indicated by the reason that the project is designed to use biodegradable materials therefore being environmentally friendly. The surveys conducted show that the number of the users can increase drastically with time and new inventions for the design improvement. Also there should be a guideline for the kids not walk in front of the darts while the game is on session this means that they should always stand behind the person throwing the darts and thus the accident chance are reduced.  Small kids should not be allowed to play with real darts. The darts to be used by the kids should plastic darts, which are not as hard as the steel-tip-darts. The idea of dart playing is incorporated from the reason that the parents have to teach their children about their past. So the dart playing game is a social game that the children can use on their own or still play with the parents.

Project evaluation

Analysis & Evaluation of Functional and Aesthetic Aspects of the Design

The location of this project demands the need to have proper positioning of toys in the yard in relation to their use. Therefore, the design qualifies the general requirements that the parent may desire for the satisfaction and comfort of the children. As a result of these this project has a number of advantages: it is easy to make thus, it each parent can make a model of their own. Secondly, it requires basic knowledge on design analysis. Lastly, the design materials are cheap and they are environmentally benign. Regardless of these merits the design has some drawbacks in that it is time consuming to make this design. And also to convince the parents to buy and implement the idea requires much effort in integrating the new design.

Final Evaluation of the project with respect to the Project Proposal and the Project’s impact on Society and the Environment

            Since this project was targeting the development of a design that suits both the children and the parent, it has proved to have achieved the design requirements. This is due to the reason that the children have humble time in the toy yard while the parent will enjoy seeing their children work in a safe environment that they are comfortable with.

The design procedure requires that the materials use should paper, thus if there are waste paper in the region it will have created recycling program for the waste paper. As a result there will be less paper waste and therefore the project has environmental impacts on the society.

Relationship of the Final Product, System or Environment to the Project Proposal

            From the analysis the completed design fits well with the children requirements and therefore it is regarded as both flexible and fit for the societal need. The project proposal focuses on the design of a toy environment which captures the attention of the children and centres the concentration in one area. The materials used to design the toys to be used in the yard are environmentally friendly thus; the project can be incorporated in the system with minimal environmental pollution.

Application of conclusions

Based on the preliminary research on the design analysis this design has achieved the need for development of new designs for toy environment. It is clear that the results obtained from the testing procedures are relatively important in relation to the project proposal in terms of safety for the user, environmental issues, quality and cost analysis.