In refugee camps, many kids do not go to school, and end up not having anything entertaining to do. To keep them interested, and also provide physical exercise, we designed and built a play to power machine that generates electricity as the kids play on it. Not only would this reduce their boredom, but it would also empower them: allowing their play to help the people around them. 

We ran into a few problems in the beginning, mostly revolving around originality. We found out that there was already many play to power machines that existed. Some of them were ideas that we had brainstormed before. We discovered swing sets that generated electricity, see saw's, and others like that.  We decided that it would be best if we made our own playground toy, and found a way to have it generate power. 

There is a generator inside one of the boxes, that spins as the kids are balancing from left to right. There is also a ratchet that is connected to the rod, that causes the generator to spin. 

Despite drawing being very important in children’s development and very important to many adults, many do not have the ability to draw due to a lack of fine motor control and other issues. The solution to this problem is a simple device that allows a pencil to be controlled with large, imprecise movements. A Myo can be used to control a drawing device with simple and easy movements.

DrawingBot makes drawing easy for people who lack the simple skills needed to draw by helping people create art without actually having to hold or precisely control the pencil. The final iteration of the project uses servo motors to move a pencil connected to the servos through multiple joints. The servos are controlled by a Myo. The drawing device was originally controlled by a timing belt and then a gear and rack until we reached our final idea which we prototyped many times. Though mostly complete, the servos movements must be corrected as well as the control system for the device.

Over 1 million children have fled Syria in the past 5 years. While escaping, travelling, and searching for a new home, they are falling behind in schooling. Besides academics, they also have to learn the language and customs of a different country. Our game is designed to help these children sharpen their skill in the four basic operations, become familiar with PEMDAS, and learn how to count from 1-99 in Turkish.

The game is designed to be played by 2 players. Each player has a set of 60 pieces containing an operation and a number and a card with a set of target numbers. Each target number corresponds to one of the rows on the board. The players’ target numbers are different, and each player keeps their target numbers a secret. Each row is a separate equation, and the goal for each row is for the answer to the equation to be closer to your target number than your opponent’s once the row is completely filled. Players take turns placing pieces on the board, altering the answer of an equation with each turn. This means that players will have to calculate the effect of each action taking PEMDAS into account.

We wanted to create a game that would be fun to play while also incorporating math into the strategy. Every time a piece is played, each player has to solve the row the piece is in to know what effect it had with PEMDAS. The more pieces have been played in the row, the longer the equation becomes. Throughout the course of a game, players will have to perform many calculations, increasing their familiarity with operations and PEMDAS through practice. Familiarity with the 4 basic operations will help the children with exponents, geometry, graphing, polynomials, and even more advanced concepts.

In our first iteration of the game, we thought of a Connect-4 type board, with most of the basic mechanics of the game. Before we made a complete prototype however, we changed the layout of the board, so that it was flat in front of both players. Our board was a perfect square, with a 6x6 grid of indents. There was no system for determining target numbers, and nowhere for the numbers to be represented. Each player’s target numbers were hidden from the other player. After playtesting this board, we found that its shape made its orientation unclear. There was also a “parentheses” round once the board was filled in which the players would take turns placing pairs of parentheses in the equations. Each player would have only two pairs of parentheses to place.

In our second iteration, we made the board stand up at an angle. This allowed players to see the board from a longer distance so that they did not need to sit right next to each other. Because it was semi-vertical, we made a little lip so that the pieces wouldn’t fall out. This also made the rows visibly different than the columns. In addition, we tested making each player’s target numbers known to the other player, and the parentheses round was removed because it was too complicated. Target numbers were assigned by target number cards, and each player now had a cardholder that would hold both their target number card and their pieces. The base of the cardholder had six indents which were made to hold five pieces each. However, they were not deep enough to contain all five of their pieces.

In our final iteration, the board sits up in front of both players, like before. However, the rows and target numbers are now color coded so that each row’s target number can be easily identified. We also decided to not make target numbers known to the other player because it removed much of the strategy from the game. The cardholder was revised, replacing the six indents with a trough designed to hold two layers of pieces in a 5x3 rectangle. When not playing, the cardholder can be rearranged into a compact shape and store a player’s pieces. Finally, we decided that because the parentheses round added so much strategy and calculation, it would be mentioned in the rules as an optional challenge.

For this project we aimed to re-create the multiple types of motion present throughout evolution, we chose evolution because it is not only difficult for non-sighted people but also for sighted people to understand because of the inability to interact with the creature or in some cases there isn't enough information to describe the creature accurately.

We  decided on the evolution of motion because there is a lack of information about extinct species and especially how they move. In addition, non-sighted people will now be able to experience multiple types of species and movements that most sighted people don't understand. To begin this project we had to research the timeline of human evolution starting by looking at simple chordates who have only the most basic beginnings to a spine, evolving all the way to Homo Erectus the most recent ancestor to human beings. To do this we had to choose four models from each generation of movement. To begin we needed to show the swimming of the chordates then the crawling/sliding of tetrapods, developing wrists and elbows into mammals with quadrupedal movement and their own body heat and primates with toes made for grasping and climbing along with losing their tails. Finally the Homo Erectus a fully bipedal being with feet made for walking and hands for precision movements. The chordate was made with a simple crank mechanism along with tabs that simulate the slithering and swimming of a chordate. Next, the tetrapods that walk on four legs with its center of gravity extremely close to the ground would be done by simulating the walk or scurry of a lizard with gears and linkages. Subsequently, there is the primate who moved mostly on all fours but is capable of bipedal walking and complex climbing. In conclusion, we wanted our project to show non-sighted people how extinct ancestors of humans moved.

Visually impaired people have trouble understanding many motions because they cannot feel them. We tried to turn flight into a tactile experience so visually impaired people can experience it as well. We did this by watching the different motions of a swan and modeling them in a linkage program.  We have two different parts: a swan unfolding its wings and a swan flapping its wings. 

Gus’ brief

The musical bike is a stationary tandem bike that, when pedaled, makes music.  As the back wheel of the bike turns a cylinder with spikes, the spikes hit a piano-style hammer that hits drums. It can be played in an ascending or descending scale or have songs programmed in like on a music box.  This bike will be a part of a playground created for children who have fled Syria and are now living on the Turkish border. The bike was created as one of many musical elements of the playground. Play and music are important for children everywhere, but many of these kids don't have much of either.  

This project builds on the mechanics of a piano. With the piano, a finger hits the key, the key moves the hammer, and the hammer hits the string to make a sound. In our innovative mechanism, a foot moves the pedals, which moves the wheel. The wheel moves a cylinder, which strikes the keys that hit the drums to make musical notes.

There are many benefits to this bike: Since this is a musical bike, we hope it motivates kids to pedal.  By pedaling faster or slower, kids can change the tempo of the music, which is fun. The bike gives kids good exercise. Because it’s tandem it is a social experience as well. We hope that our design helps kids meet new friends on the playground and just makes kids happy.