The Problem
This project is a challenge to redesign the way we interact with everyday objects. In this project, we aim to provide children an innovative way to experience music and block building. It is proved that music is beneficial for children’s early development, and building blocks helps children improve motor skills and problem-solving skills. However, it is discovered that percussion is the only major tool children used to experience music creation in their early years. Therefore, we want to find an alternative way for children to experience music and music creation.
Target User
Children 4 to 7 years old: kids around this age range tend to enjoy playing with blocks more. Also, we want to focus on early childhood development.
Research
Observation: Our team did an observation at a kindergarten. We discover that children enjoy playing blocks, and they can get really creative in building them. It is one of the major activities kids do in their playtime. Other activities kids do include drawing, reading, and playing with play dough.
Literature: Building blocks improves kids motor skills and physical coordination. Children can also develop creativity and imagination through such activity. It is more common to see young kids experience music through percussion than any other types of instruments or tools.
Design: Part I
As the main designer of the team, I am responsible for designing the form and the look of the blocks. The main idea is to create musical blocks. There will be music when our users join the blocks together. The music changes when users join blocks in different directions. Different blocks will have different sets of music, providing more music variation.
Concept 1.0: In order to tightly connect two blocks, there has to be a concave face and a convex face. On the concave face, there is a piece of wood sticking out. On the convex face, touch sensor is embedded into the hole in the center of the face.
Prototype 1.0
We are not sure if connecting a piece of wood and touch sensor is the best combination, technically speaking, so we made a MVP (Minimal Viable Product) to test out. Prototype 1.0 is made of wood pieces, touch sensors (to trigger music), and speakers.
Design: Part II
Concept 2.0: there are two major problems with touch sensors. First, when the piece of wood is in contact with the touch sensor, it does not quite well trigger the music to play. Second, the speaker is of low quality, so the volume of the music is very low. The music is unclear and has noise.
Prototype 2.0
The final prototype is made of acrylics. We made 6 musical blocks in total. Each block consists of 3 concave faces and 3 convex faces. The concave face is embedded with a reed switch in the center (image X). The convex face had a piece of square-shaped acrylic sticking out, embedded with a magnet in the center.
When the magnet connects with the reed switch, a circuit is completed and will then trigger music to be played.
Arduino is hidden inside the block, connecting all the wires.
I created 8 sets of instrumental music using software Ableton.
Here is a gif I made to show the main idea of our design:
Evaluation
Kids love to play blocks, even musical blocks! However, the music volume is still too low for them to hear clearly, especially in a relatively noisy environment. Here are some main findings:
Kids found musical blocks interesting and fun, but when all sets of music is played altogether, it gets loud and annoying. Some kids did not enjoy the experience.
When music is played altogether and the user tries to change they way they connect the blocks, they can hardly notice the difference in music because the music is too noisy and complicated.
There was only 6 blocks made due to time limit and budget. Therefore, interaction is too limited for us to carry out a valuable evaluation.
Blocks were too big for kids’ hand size. It was not easy to play with one hand.
Project Outcomes
The project is exhibited on 31st of May, 2019, in Brisbane City, at the Edge building at Cultural Center.
Check out the kickstarter video I made for my team.