Powered by Play: FASTRONAUTS
Anyone who has watched children tirelessly run around understands the clichéd desire to “bottle” children’s energy. It doesn’t have to be wishful thinking – “capturing” this energy can lead to healthy, educational, empowering play.
Sara’s graduate thesis project was inspired by Gaviotas, a ecologically- minded village in Colombia. There, an inventor created a water pump powered by a child’s teeter-totter. Water pumps powered by merry-go-rounds can also be found throughout certain areas of Africa.
One initial concept prototyped was DYNAMO ROBOT, a small electronic friend who is powered by biking. Dynamo Robot was featured on banners to advertise Academy of Art University.
Sketches for other wearable, ride-on, large and small scale toys to “capture” kinetic energy from play.
RESEARCH
Children and their parents were observed and interviewed at schools, museums, playgrounds, and play rooms to reveal design guidelines.
“I LIKE IT BECAUSE”
4-6 years olds were shown sketches to see if they prefer person-like, animal-like, or thing-like characters, “cute v. weird,” “real v. imaginary,” or certain themes over others.
A majority of all genders loved flying related themes – astronaut, super hero, etc. Many of the kids preferred one- and three- eyed monsters over their two-eyed colleagues, and everyone liked the alien, “because he had stars.”
Sketches and rough sculpts were created to explore Aliens, Astronauts, Robots, and one-eyed Monsters.
FASTRONAUTS
Over a year of research and ideation led to the development of the FASTRONAUTS, a set of toys powered by play. Each Fastronaut character has a rechargeable battery which is recharged in their spaceship accessories by biking, rolling, spinning, or cranking. Once powered up, Fastronauts light up and talk, and the more active their user, the more they do. This helps develop a child’s sense of cause and effect and personal empowerment.
PUBLICATIONS FEATURING FASTRONAUTS
Reis, Dalcacio. Product Design in the Sustainable Era. Berlin, 2010.
“This book brings together over 100 such innovative and award-winning projects from over 20 countries, launched by leading design offices and companies worldwide, including IDEO, IBM, and New Deal Design.”
onearth, Summer 2009. “The winner of this year’s second Greener Gadgets Design Competition was the tweet-a-watt … But the entry that stole our hearts was the Fastronauts, a boldly colored space-hero toy that is ‘powered by play.’”
Design148. Taiwan, 2009.
Wohn!Design, Stuttgart, Germany, 2009.
SKILLS / SOFTWARE – Ideation, Sketching, Prototyping, User Research, Focus Groups, CAD, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Rhino.