REACH Project
The reach project is a project that began within Engineering Design Studio 1. The goal was to design a toy that was meant to encourage young kids to work on fine and gross motor disabilities. The toy was then presented to REACH Services, a local therapy that works with kids with disabilities, and tested by kids. During the second Studio in Engineering Design, students were to work on different toys than they had in the previous studio, with one student staying on each team. During studio 2, students had to test the toys to ASTM standards, including but not limited to the drop test, compression test, and torque test. As students, we had to design and use a test plan for each metric we tested to.
Mega Marble Maze was the team I had become a part of. The project is a 3-D printed, special needs friendly version of marble maze. The blocks are big enough to be held easily and have magnets to assist stacking them and putting them together. The product itself already had an initial design, however over the course of the quarter the goal is to evaluate the products against ASTM toy standards and redesign them to meet all the criteria. We began by going to REACH Services and showed them the products as well as watched how the children played with them. We also asked the children and the therapist questions about the toy (such as improvements, likes, dislikes, etc.). Using this feedback, we made a list of blocks to create, taking note of which ones were liked the most. Personally I worked on updating the blocks as needed, this included updating blocks with arrows
During the allotted time, we perform tests including the drop test, tension test, compression test, magnet test, and tension test to ensure that the 3-D printed toy is safe for the intended use. All the test plans are written by us, using ASTM information as a base. While writing the test plans, we must consider what equipment is available to us and how to effectively use it with our group’s product. Mega Marble Maze passed all the testing with flying colors. The only changes we made post testing was using different colors of filaments and working on an alternating block, which was an unfinished concept by the last group.