Changes in design

From the beginning of the project the idea was to cover the wooden panel with a printed picture of a farm. But after some discussion in the group we realized that the playing experience wouldn’t be as pleasant as if we used fabric.

To start with, we chose to use padding all over the wooden panel to make the activity wall softer and more comfortable when the child plays. The main idea with the padding was to get rid of the feeling that the toy is completely made of wood.

Furthermore, to create the grass on the farm we chose green fabric and to represent the sky we used blue fabric. But when we created the house on the farm, we chose a different type of material. We chose to create the house with carpet, this creates the opportunity for the child to interact with the wall inform of feeling and touch. The child can feel that there is a house on the wall and that it doesn’t feel the same as the sky or the grass. An extra addition to the design is the sun you see in the first picture. We strived for a more cheerful experience for the kid that is playing.

On the back of the wooden panel we drilled four “legs” that raise the toy from the ground. We did this due to the fact that we wanted to make sure that the Arduino board and the speaker fits on the back. Also we decided to put squared plywood segments to work as resistance for our blocks and so we can put the RFID-readers.

Moreover, when it comes to the wooden geometrical blocks we made sure that we sanded them very carefully to make sure that we minimize the risk that the child don’t get hurt and that the surface feel smooth and nice.

To conclude this session, we can say that the problems we encountered were that it wasn’t easy to glue the fabric on the padding. The hot glue melted the padding and made it more difficult to attach the fabric.