Students make educational games that stimulate body movements | They favor autonomy, imagination and the senses

2023-07-11 04:31:12

Students from the National University of Lanús (UNLa) designed and manufactured didactic toys such as drums, nesting boards, a “little house” and even a “pata pata”. They are intended for children from zero to three years old and stimulate motor skills, sensory perception, attention and encourage group activity. The developments were made within the framework of the Degree in Industrial Design and were donated to the kindergarten owned by the University. Although these are prototypes that are carried out within the framework of the practical workshops of the degree, they could set a precedent for their future commercialization or linkage with educational institutions in the area.

“To carry out the work we went to the garden and observed where the toys were going to be stored, how the space was distributed and what materials it was made of. Since most of the children still do not speak, we had to pay attention to how long they interacted with the different games and we came to the conclusion that they felt more attracted to visual, sound and tactile stimuli”, say Victoria Tabernero and Leonardo Arévalo, UNA students.

Thus, the group of students discovered Montessori games (which derive from the method developed by the educator María Montessori at the beginning of the 20th century) that stimulate autonomy, imagination and the senses. These types of toys are usually made of wood and have different colors, sounds, textures and shapes so that the little ones can develop, among other things, body motor skills to make large and small movements.

“We were looking for different shapes that can respond to all this and that are also visually attractive so that the shape catches their attention,” Tabernero and Arévalo explain. In this way, they created several games that in turn can be grouped into one to encourage the development of children and occupy as little space as possible in the room.

In recent years, the Degree in Industrial Design oriented its practices to the resolution of real problems typical of the different actors in the community. In this way, students find extra motivation since their creations solve different specific problems and also learn knowledge that goes beyond the degree.

“We are very happy with the final result because the response we saw from the first children who had contact with the toy was very good,” say Nicolás Sardi and Amelia Aragón, students of the race. In this sense, Lautaro Díaz and Andrés Saia, also members of the team, add: “They were four months of a lot of stress, of thinking and solving things on the go, but the truth is that it was worth it. Seeing the children play with a product that we made was exciting”.

Although it is not the objective of the subject, the project could be reproduced on a medium or large scale. As part of the work, the students generated all the necessary documentation: the analysis of the products, the development of the technical drawings and the manufacturing files for the corresponding machinery.