Industrial Design
product • furniture • social\impact
KIWA DOG TOY
KIWA is a versatile brand that allows owners to customize toys to their dog’s specific needs and interests. The KIWA toy incorporates features which promote both independent and social play and addresses issues such as dental hygiene, boredom, and anxiety.
THE CHALLENGE
Dog-owners love their pets, but the majority of them have commitments to their careers and personal lives which restrict the time they can spend with them. Besides falling short of the recommended amount of attention and exercise, these dogs experience long periods of solitude which can lead to boredom, lethargy, anxiety and even destructive or self-harming behavior.
How can we help our pets transition from Social to Independent play?
WHY IT MATTERS
The average American spends 8.7 hours a day at work. Many of these Americans are also dog owners.
Dogs require a minimum of 1.5 hours of invigorating exercise and an additional 2 hours of interactive/ family time, daily.
Separation anxiety and/ or depression has been diagnosed in 20-40% of dogs referred to animal behavior practices in North America.
Majority of those dogs suffering from depression or separation anxiety are former shelter dogs.
WHY IT MATTERS
The average American spends 8.7 hours a day at work. Many of these Americans are also dog owners.
Dogs require a minimum of 1.5 hours of invigorating exercise and an additional 2 hours of interactive/ family time, daily.
Separation anxiety and/ or depression has been diagnosed in 20-40% of dogs referred to animal behavior practices in North America.
Majority of those dogs suffering from depression or separation anxiety are former shelter dogs.
EXPLORATION
The KIWA’s name and unique appearance are derived from the exotic Kiwano melon. The fruit’s ‘horned’ features served as a reference for the general shape and texture of the toy.
Other influences included successful brands like KONG and their durable, treat-compatible designs, Nylabone’s dental chew products for promoting oral health, and the simple, convenient Chase ‘N Chomp plastic bottle sleeve accessory.
THE DESIGN
The final concept is a series of interchangeable components that can be combined in different ways based on any pet’s individual interests. Adopting the dumbbell-shaped design provides them with a more natural, comfortable experience.
Manufactured from a tough, non-vulcanized rubber that can stand up to heavy chewers and a unique topography that generates exciting and unexpected movement makes the KIWA appropriate for both self-amusement and interactive bond-building play.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
The finished prototype is constructed from a two-part liquid polyurethane rubber cast, chosen for it’s abrasion resistance, high tear strength, and flexibility. Threaded PVC fittings allow for the KIWA to come apart at its axis for easy customization and part replacement.
A hollow interior in the body of both KIWA components was formed using a custom silicone mold, creating space for a ‘crinkly’ PET plastic ball in one half, and an air pocket for pressing air through a squeaker reed in the other.
HOW IT WORKS
The KIWA is designed to unscrew at its center so that owners can swap out different sounds, sizes, textures and durabilities for new and entertaining combinations. The unique cone-shaped chambers on the KIWA hold treats to keep dogs occupied for long periods of time. The chambers are covered in dental tips to help fight plaque and tartar buildup, and strengthen teeth and gums as they chew.
CENTURY TABLE + LOUNGE
The Century Table + Lounge is an adaptable workspace designed to meet the ever-changing needs of its users. It was developed primarily with communal spaces in mind, bringing function to static environments, promoting social interaction, and providing a hub to share knowledge and ideas.
INSPIRATION
The Century table is the result of an exercise in creating unique forms from abstract content. Bob Dylan’s song The Times they are A-Changin’ was the inspiration for the final piece.
The table’s circular design alludes to Dylan’s call to action, urging people to “come gather ‘round”, engage in discussion and encourage change. It’s physical construction echos this sentiment, serving as an adaptable, multi-use station.
EXPLORATION
Century’s shape was influenced by visual representations of time — cultural imagery of the World Serpent, wheel calendars from ancient civilizations, clocks and sundials, a vinyl record...
Later iterations incorporated tiered sections, suggesting change or growth, and offering unique spaces to support various needs.
CONSTRUCTION
Built by hand from resilient maple wood, the Century table needed to be rugged enough to stand up to constant use but attractive enough to exist in prominent public spaces. Mimicking the table’s unique shape, custom metal brackets were cut to allow for easy, flat-pack shipping and on-site assembly.
FEATURES
The Century Table stands 42” overall and 66” wide across its base. The cushions are upholstered with durable vinyl, making it easy to clean and increasing its longevity in public spaces. Unobtrusive storage hooks and a magnetic dry-erase board bring even greater utility to the piece.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
Providing three distinct spaces, the Century Table + Lounge allows users to move easily from a place of comfortable repose, to focused productivity, to active participation. It can serve as a center for social interaction and collaboration, or as individual, studio-style workspaces for students and employees.
BRIGHTLY WORKSHOPS
Brightly is an initiative that brings designers, educators and local learning centers together to develop fun, interactive and educational pop-up exhibits for young students.
Using innovative flat-pack construction methods, our immersive transportable designs make museum-style exhibits accessible to underfunded classrooms and help overcome the limitations of standard teaching practices.
THE CHALLENGE
While teachers and administrators work hard to provide an excellent education for students, the structure of our public education system can’t meet the needs of many students.
Children are sorted into classrooms based primarily on age rather than skill level, often isolated by individual assignments, dissuaded from intellectual autonomy, and are required to meet inflexible state testing standards.
UNDERSTANDING INTELLIGENCE
To meet these standards, faculty members are compelled to “teach to the test”, leaving minimal opportunity to accommodate children with learning styles that fall outside traditional notions of intelligence, and reflect only language and logic skills.
In fact, research shows there are several kinds of intelligence, including visual, musical, naturalistic, kinesthetic, etc.
“
Things are changing around us constantly,
but in schools, not so much.
”
— Harrisonburg, VA Superintendent
DIVERGENT THINKING
These methods also depend on Convergent Thinking (the ability to give the “correct” answer to standard questions) as a way to measure typical intelligence.
Divergent Thinking, however, is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions (not supported by typical school standards).
To help address these challenges, our team needed to:
Incorporate a broader spectrum of learning styles
Embrace divergent thinking as a viable method for problem solving.
Provide engaging and relatable context for a wide range of subject matter.
Our product should encourage students to ask questions, find better solutions, and gain confidence in their abilities.
WHY IT MATTERS
Since No Child Left Behind passed in 2002, the US has slipped in international Math and Science ranking, with no improvement in subjects like reading.
In a 10 year study, 16,000 children were tested at various points in their lives to measure their divergent thinking ability. Initially, 98% of children (ages 3-5) scored positively, but fell to just 2% by age 25.
A 2010 study found U.S. student’s scores on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking have been falling since 1990 (with the rise of standardized testing partly to blame) — leading to a “creativity crisis” that puts our economic future at risk.
Minimal career exploration in early edu. is contributing to a skills mismatch in the US job market. Today, there are nearly as many job openings as job-seekers
(~6 million) but businesses struggle to find workers with the necessary skillsets.
WHY IT MATTERS
Since No Child Left Behind passed in 2002, the US has slipped in international Math and Science ranking, with no improvement in subjects like reading.
In a 10 year study, 16,000 children were tested at various points in their lives to measure their divergent thinking ability. Initially, 98% of children (ages 3-5) scored positively, but fell to just 2% by age 25.
A 2010 study found U.S. student’s scores on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking have been falling since 1990 (with the rise of standardized testing partly to blame) — leading to a “creativity crisis” that puts our economic future at risk.
Minimal career exploration in early edu. is contributing to a skills mismatch in the US job market. Today, there are nearly as many job openings as job-seekers
(~6 million) but businesses struggle to find workers with the necessary skillsets.
CONCEPT
Our design team worked with various educational institutions focused on providing interactive experiences for children (primarily Explore More Discovery Museum in Harrisonburg, VA), gathering insights and discussing challenges.
The solution was to develop a series of “pop-up” workshops that paralleled current children’s museum content, effectively creating mini mobile exhibits.
HEALTH CENTER
Our prototype was based on content from the Discovery museum’s “Health Center” exhibit and incorporated specific displays and activities that could be adapted to our system.
We observed and interacted with children playing in the exhibit, studied the display’s design and contents, and reviewed the local, state and national requirements for learning related to the subject matter.
While our primary goal was to design a fun, innovative experience for young learners, to be truly effective we also needed to adhere to the demands of state required exams.
To insure we met specific standards of education and took an informed approach to developing legitimate teaching tools our team consulted the museum’s Content Director, as well as several local educators and policy-makers.
CAREER EXPLORATION
The design team also prioritized incorporating an element of career exploration, using story-driven lesson plans that touched on a spectrum of careers within a particular field to create an immersive learning environment. While this particular product focused on health and medicine, we devised an entire series of potential “workshops” that could be developed using the same approach.
DEVELOPMENT + DESIGN
Our exhibits were designed to meet several physical demands, including being:
Safe for children
Cost-effective
Easy to transport, assemble and operate
Durable, replaceable and easy to clean
Adaptable to various classroom environments.
In order to excite and inspire students we looked to traditional children’s playhouses for initial inspiration. We wanted to create a physical space for them to interact with the subject matter in a way that felt fun and familiar.
The exhibit’s structural form was influenced by fold-away furniture designs, temporary trade show displays and standees, pop-up campers and mobile kiosks, and laser-cut model kits.
CONSTRUCTION
Focusing on the necessity for an uncomplicated, flat-pack design, the final prototype expands from just 4” thick, to 5ft tall. After exploring alternate materials, the finished design incorporates unique panels fabricated from a combination of insulation foam, rigid wood supports and antimicrobial plastic sheet. The result is a strong composite material that is both extremely light-weight and durable and is easy to clean or replace at minimal cost.
ASSEMBLY
Through simple, intuitive designs and a thoughtful approach to packaging, our pop-up exhibit is quick and easy to transport and assemble; it takes two adults just 5 minutes to put together.
They are compact enough to fit in any standard van, truck or SUV and pass through any typical doorway or elevator. It can be effortlessly incorporated into any classroom and utilize many common classroom resources to reduce costs.
ACTIVITY KITS
Great learning happens in groups — by separating people (and evaluating them individually) we form a disjunction between them and their natural learning environment. Because group learning has been shown to be more effective, it is a guiding principle in the structure of our pop-up exhibits.
Since all students in a typical classroom could not interact with the central exhibit simultaneously, we include corresponding hands-on “activity kits” to support project-based learning. The kits are stationed around the exhibit and students are assembled into small groups. As they rotate from one space to another, they help one-another understand and complete the activities.
INTERACTIVE
To create these environments, we pulled inspiration from both the local children’s museum and from museums around the world that had effective interactive and educational exhibits.
Our final design includes a large-scale “operation” game, dry-erase windows that can be used as drawing surfaces or as a “photo booth” with additional costume pin-ons, an x-ray view-master with stereoscopic slides to help students learn the differences between living and non-living things, and a medical equipment scavenger hunt.
REVOLUTIONIZING LEARNING
Our mobile exhibits offer alternative, hands-on, sensory experiences that supplement standardized classroom learning and improves classroom culture as a whole — encouraging students and inspiring teachers.
They provide interactive tools and activities that create an immersive learning environment for students and can be designed around any subject-matter.
