The aim of this graduation project was to design a play-based exhibit piece for the Green Kids' Museum in Kenya with the objective to raise awareness of biodiversity and ecosystems in a playful manner.

Global climate is changing at rapid speed, resulting in a loss of biodiversity and the breakdown of ecosystems (Damiens, 2021). It is important that people are made aware of the dramatic consequences if these ecosystems would be lost forever. Yet, children in Kenya are not fully aware of the richness of the ecosystems within their own country, hence there is a clear need for inspiring education. The Green Kids’ Museum will be built with the objective to raise children’s awareness of the different aspects of sustainability, with one room dedicated to biodiversity and ecosystems in Kenya.

This research project has explored different ways to transfer knowledge in a playful way about biodiversity and ecosystems fitting children in the 9 to 11 year old age range. The outcome of this exploration resulted in a game that serves as an interactive exhibit piece helping children recognize the different ecosystems in Kenya.

In the initial phase of this project research was done in three different Dutch museums to understand what type of museum installation attracts children. This showed that children are mostly attracted to large striking installations that are interactive and require little to no instructions and installations where they can build something or win a prize. These aspects were taken into account during the ideation phase; each design needed to have at least one of the previously mentioned aspects to make it attract to children. The chosen design had the first three aspects incorporated and resulted in a first iteration that was tested with the target group. The evaluation with the target group was split into a physical test and an online test. The results of this test showed that the children enjoyed the game, but expressed the wish to play the game for a longer amount of time and at an increased level of complexity. A number of unfamiliar animals were added to the game increasing the complexity and duration of the game. The design was evaluated with manufacturers in Kenya to validate that the product could be fully manufactured in Kenya. Based on their feedback some alterations were applied to the design making it ready for manufacturing. Manufacturers were selected based on their efforts to produce sustainably. This selection was done based on the manufacturing techniques catalogue, created by the researcher for this project, providing a comparison of different manufacturers in Kenya that execute that same technique. Based on these results a final design has been created.

The final concept, “The Great Kenya Eco Challenge”, is an interactive exhibit piece teaching Kenyan children how to recognize the different ecosystems in Kenya. This is done by matching different animals to the ecosystem they live in using a button system. The exhibit piece enables children to learn about ecosystems in a playful and fun way.

This master thesis tackles the questions: How to involve child patients in their clinical tests and their test results in a child-centred way? How to enable and encourage them to participate in the discussions around their care?
It focuses on the not yet existing (July 2020) context of the Child Brain Lab, a clinical research project that is being set up at the Sophia Children’s Hospital. Here, child patients will undergo a wide variety of tests related to their brain that will take up several hours of their time. Their test results will then be discussed by the clinician and the child-patient family. Without the right supporting design, the Child Brain Lab (CBL) is subject to many of the issues that child patients generally face: Not being able to comprehend the conversations between parents and doctors, not getting the chance to voice their own needs and opinions and suffering anxiety about if, how and why clinical tests will be conducted. This project started with a broad context analysis. This included reviewing the literature, observing consultations, and interviewing a variety of healthcare professionals and child patients. This analysis revealed many possible reasons why child involvement is often limited. For example, it was found that by default, the child patients themselves typically take a rather passive role in discussing their care. These insights were then translated into design drivers that inspired several iterations of design ideas. Consequently, these ideas were used to learn from by discussing them with all main stakeholders of this project. This sparked a second iteration of design drivers that ultimately lead to the brain puzzle concept.
The brain puzzle concept is a collection of avatar-based, personalized puzzle pieces the child patient collects as it goes through the CBL. Each piece comes with a different function and serves a different phase of the CBL experience: The first type of pieces shows the sequence of tests that will be conducted while the second type shows which brain functions those tests investigate. Before the consultation, the child patients also receive an indication of their test results in the form of stickers, which can be placed on the corresponding puzzle piece. With these stickers, both the clinicians and the children can indicate which part they want to discuss. These pieces are then brought to the consultation as a discussion tool and to structure the conversation with more regard for the child’s perspective. To evaluate this concept, a prototype was made and evaluated with child-patients, their parents, and their clinicians in over 17 interviews. The results show that the participants were unanimously positive about the overall design and they would like to see it being implemented. Especially parents and clinicians indicated that the concept would playfully guide the children through the CBL and enable them to discuss what they want to discuss. This thesis concludes by listing areas for improvement of the concept and discusses those in the broader context of informing children about their test results.

This report describes the development of the tool PREQUEL, a tangible storytelling tool to build a family culture. The tool is intended to support meaningful conversations between two parents. Through conversation and storytelling, the tool encourages them to explore the world of parenting and everything that comes with that.

Parenting always comes with challenges. However, intercultural parents experience added stressors. Being raised in different cultural groups, intercultural parents will probably hold diverse values, beliefs, and attitudes. The more opposing the values are, the greater the likelihood of the parents encountering problems. Values translate into practices which are particular ways of doing something. The challenge for these parents is to reconcile different childrearing practices that have these contradictory aims and goals.

The goal that guided the project is “to support new intercultural parents, in the safe context of their home, in building a family culture that both can rely on and are comfortable with by teaching them to reflect and communicate so that they can create a stable and consistent environment for themselves and their child(ren)”.

PREQUEL is based on a framework comprising of six steps: awareness, understanding, evaluation, appreciation, adjustment, and execution. The framework is a way for parents to work through their experiences and evaluate their behaviour. They are supported in going through the steps, which concludes with them planning how to approach future parenting situations. They do this by identifying shared values and use them as a strength in their daily lives. This will lead to both parents and child(ren) being able to cherish the richness that sharing multiple cultures can bring.

This graduation report aimed towards the vision „ Transform the needs of the minority into the wishes of the majority“. Children with physical disabilities face the issue to be excluded from the toy world of the able-bodied children. Toys with small buttons, heavyweight or the need of two hands for operating are examples which let children with physical disabilities experience failure. Alternative toys are mostly just suiting their abilities but forget about their actual needs. These needs are for example group play, rebellious play and active play. Further, these alternatives lack when it comes to pop culture topics or an aesthetic outer appearance. This insight showed the opportunity to create a toy for the mass market which takes inspiration from the abilities and needs of children with physical disabilities. The project was executed in cooperation with the toy brand Hasbro. Thus, it was possible to base the project on one of their products called NERF blaster. These toy blasters shoot non-harmful soft foam darts. This toy was chosen since it offers team play, active play, role play, rebellious play as well as it covers pop-cultural topics. Thus it is a perfect toy to satisfy the needs of children with physical disabilities.
The project was executed in the following steps:
Analysis
At the start of the project knowledge regarding the topic of physical disabilities, inclusion and the toy itself needed to be gathered. To gain this knowledge, a literature research was conducted. Further, a school for children with physical disabilities was visited as well as a basketball wheelchair club, a trade fair for rehabilitation products and an occupational therapist.
The research concluded with the insight of how a blaster could support the inclusion of children with physical disabilities. Also, a universal criterion was defined which tries to summarise the various kinds of physical disabilities.
Direction forming
The insights taken from the analysis phase were translated into inspirational guidelines.
A matrix was created which combines three determined abilities with the tasks needed to operate a blaster. By using multiple “how-to” questions, different ideas to operate a blaster were generated. Promising ideas were clustered and visualised. Two loops of expert evaluation lead to one final direction.
Concept Development
The core elements of the concept direction were defined to set a focus for the upcoming steps. Necessary measurements of the to-be-designed toy were determined to create reference points. By using CAD modelling, sketching and rough mock-ups, the defined core elements were further developed.
Company Visit
To bring the concept to the next level, one needed to get feedback from the toy industry. Therefore the concept was presented to individuals at the Hasbro headquarter in Pawtucket, USA.
The feedback emphasised the need for a good story for the toy. Instead of going already too much into detail about technical solutions, first of all, the story needed to be convincing. Further, it became apparent that the toy’s trigger had to become universal.
Integration of Feedback / Final Design
As a final step of the project, the feedback was evaluated and integrated into the concept. The outcome was the definition of a theme as well as the market positioning. Further, two parts were changed regarding their function. A test with seven children with physical disabilities was conducted to evaluate one of the reworked parts. Also, the overall styling was adapted to the defined theme.
The report finishes with an evaluation of the created concept. An upcoming step would be to build a fully functional prototype and test it regarding the designs mechanical functionality and ergonomics.

This projectThe aim of this graduation project was to find out how to make the Mauritshuis, an art gallery museum in the city centre of The Hague, relevant to visiting families with children. Thereby the focus was on how to engage the families as soon as they enter the permanent exhibition of the museum and make the museum more relevant to them accordingly. The Relevance by Play Framework (Vermeeren & Calvi, 2019) was taken as reference. To understand the message and experience that the Mauritshuis wants to provide to its visitors (and mainly families with children) with the help of the permanent exhibition, the content of the permanent exhibition, the management mission / vision and museum employees are consulted. Additionally the strengths and weaknesses of the current family product in use are reviewed as reference. The scope is broadened by looking at how other museums approach families with children. Parallel to getting to know the core of the Mauritshuis, research has been conducted with families, both parents and children, with the aim to understand their motivations, roles and interests before –and during a visit to museums in general, or the Mauritshuis specifically. This was achieved through a literature review, observations, questionnaires, interviews and generative sessions. The project visionThe research outcomes resulted in an interaction vision:"I want that the Mauritshuis becomes like an exciting exploration of a goldmine. Corridor systems give confidence and guidance to curious families that decide to walk autonomously through the goldmine. When gold is discovered, it can be subtracted from the mine and taken home as a reminding reward to proudly share with others." The vision was used as base while generating product ideas. Through engaging employees of the Mauritshuis in the idea generation, a concept is developed that was assumed to be relevant to both the Mauritshuis and visiting families: the Mystery Game. The Mystery GameThe Mystery game is storytelling application on an iPad, which keeps the family together while travelling through the Mauritshuis. The family is helped to immerse in the stories behind the building: they can see a reconstruction of each room of the year 1704 when inside the rooms, with the use of animations, movies and augmented reality. The present is mixed with the past and the family is challenged to find the link between them through solving a mystery in each room. A prototype has been made of this concept as proof of concept and in order to test its relevance.

This thesis describes the design of the product-service combination called Move on. Move on is designed to stimulate adolescents to be more physically active. This stimulation is done by gamification, which therefore can be considered as serious gaming product. This thesis starts with a literature analysis of the decreasing level of childrens’ physical well-being. Added to this analysis, is a literature research on the increased digitalization among children to see if there is a connection between their increased screen-time and the decreasing level of fitness. A relation between digitalization and emotional behavior, and digitalization and social relationships, has also been taken into account.
It seems that there is no clear proof of the coherency between the increasing digitalization and decreasing physical activity. Which was a positive result, since the advantages of the digitalization could be taken into account when designing a product for children. After finding out that the adolescents, of all children, spend the most time stuck to their screens, the target group for the ideation phase was determined. A target group analysis and a market analysis eventually lead, together with the previous insights, to a full program of requirements and therefore the end of the design brief. The design brief created the base for the next phase: the synthesis phase. Within the synthesis phase of the product development, some concept directions were found. These concept directions lead to some iteration steps which eventually resulted in the embodiment phase of the Move on. The embodiment phase describes the final concept with regard to its materials, production method, and price estimation. An important part of the Move on, is that it is able to recognize the user motion. This motion will be converted to a reward, which the user can use in their favorite game. Since this motion recognition plays a big role in the product, a basic machine learning validation is executed. Data from walking and running sessions is used to actually predict if the user is walking or running. This validation succeeded with a hit rate value of 96 percent. The end of the thesis will describe recommended steps fur future development of the product, together with a project and a personal evaluation.

Children's participation in society is still limited without the establishment of appropriate areas, and the possibility to access the spheres of urban activism, children risks to remain invisible citizens. While children don't get the chance to unleash their creative talents in the innovation playground society is turning into, society lacks their contribution as playful and constructive disorganizers of the world. Based on those background premises, the current project focuses on exploring how children can participate in society without a top-down involvement and how they can be supported in the process of empowerment as active agents in their social and urban context. The opportunity for the project inquiry was found in collaboration with a children center in the outskirt of Bari (Italy), a frontrunner of the Urban civic networks project aimed at promoting urban and human regeneration in a neglected context, where the sense of powerlessness over positive transformations is handed down to children. A research through design approach was utilized to achieve the project goal: design a tool that enables 6 to 12 years old children to undertake an activation journey to take action towards prosocial challenges meaningful for themselves and their community. In the initial research cycle, desk research and comparative analysis of 6 different case studies of toolkit and programs were performed to unveil how children's empowerment could be supported by design. The resulting map of ideal empowering strategies allowed to identify some pillars of children activation process to inform the following cycles. Among those, the community perception, the unlocking of I can mindset and opportunities for action were the object of the research through design interventions, together with the open endedness of the activation process disclosed along with the two iterations. The insights collected converged into children's intuitive, creative activation journey, including gaps, enablers, and needs they experienced along it. They also contributed to enriching the requirements list for the tool's design. During the ideation the leading research outcomes were embodied in the final tool proposal "Il Priscio", activities set for young positive change-makers, that propose them a child-led activation through 5 main steps: raising I can, finding relevance in opportunities for change, becoming protagonists, powers-driven ideation and practicing courage. The tool suitcase board contains 14 activity cards with open-ended steps to perform and additional materials to support the experience, such as a platform to practice courage by sharing the results of the powers-driven ideation. The partial test of the tool in the context of the Urban civic network, set up as a third design intervention, acted as a launchpad for children self-activation. Although the implementation in the context of civic associations is envisioned, the tool opened up further research direction about children's self-esteem, the communicative potential of their imaginative interventions, constructive communication with policymakers, and the addition of levels of ambiguity to the tool journey.

This project is in collaboration with the Green Kids’ Museum Kenya, which will be the first interactive children museum in East Africa. The museum will become a place for children of age 6 to 14 to learn, inspire and explore, with sustainability at its core.

The purpose of the project is to propose an interactive design to playfully foster awareness around renewable energy at the Green Kids' Museum Kenya, in specific for children aged 9 to 11 living in the Nairobi metropolitan area.

An effective and engaging way to educate children is by providing a play-based learning experience as it capitalises on the motivational abilities and engagement of play. In order to provide such an experience the target group first needs to be triggered to engage with the installation. Once the children are interested in the installation they need to be able to playfully explore, experiment and reflect on the implementation of renewable energy. After which the children will leave the installation with a sense of pride, due to the gained learning experience.

To support the play-based learning journey and to ensure that an exhibition is engaging for children, 12 guidelines have been developed, based on a creative session with children, interviews with stakeholders, museum visits and literature review. Each guideline corresponds with an underlying need of children: support children with different interests, give children the feeling that they are in control, allow children to take a break to reflect on their experience, enable discovery, emphasise the feeling of fellowship, challenge the abilities of the children, provide a clear and simple introduction, allow children to take risks, trigger their senses, reflect everyday life within the installation, utilise humour and create an aesthetically pleasing experience.

The guidelines formed the basis for developing the design Geotricity. Geotricity consists of a table with an interactive landscape projected on it. The challenge for the children is to provide energy to the houses on the table. To accomplish this, the children can place elements that represent renewable energy power plants. Placing an element causes the projection to change accordingly. If a power plant is placed in a correct position, the lights in the corresponding houses are turned on. Through exploration, experimentation and reflection the child will learn about the implementation of the different renewable energy power plants.

Based on an evaluation test with Dutch children at the age of 10, it appears that the concept is experienced as engaging and provides children the opportunity to playfully explore and experiment with the applicability of power plants. Once they properly positioned an element and made a house light up, the children felt a sense of pride.

Further research needs to be conducted to establish if the design has the same impact on the target group of children aged 9 to 11 living in the Nairobi metropolitan area and to determine whether the experience has the desired educational impact.

Sustainable Rural Initiatives (SRI) is a non-profit organisation in Okana, a rural community in West Kenya. SRI provides the community members of Okana with opportunities to develop practical skills such as carpentry and tailoring. SRI also works with international partners with specific expertise to give local community members opportunities to develop skills they would otherwise not have had. In all these efforts, there is a strong focus on reflecting the culture, surroundings, and values of the community. Play is an important aspect of how children develop and make sense of their surroundings. Toys are tools through which play is facilitated, but making toys itself is a common form of play too. The literature on play suggests that by providing kids with joyful, engaging, iterative and socially interactive play experiences, adults can guide children’s play to help children develop skills directly involved with that play experience, but also more general learning-to-learn skills. My project had two goals; the first was to give children the opportunity to develop design skills in a fun and playful way. Design is an exciting medium for kids to develop several valuable design skills, that are broadly applicable. The second was to give SRI the tools and practical knowledge to provide children with design activities through which they can develop those skills, both now and in the future. To reach these goals I designed a toolkit, consisting of a manual and several videos, that allows SRI to organise playful design workshops for kids to help the children develop these design skills. In the workshops, the children design toys from materials such as clay and wood, that are available around SRI’s community centre. In the workshops the design process is structured in three phases. In the first phase, a topic is introduced through a video, that then poses several questions to help the kids discuss that topic. These discussions help them to make their goal concrete, as they practise working together. In the second phase they build and test their idea. The kids first gather materials, and then use those materials to prototype their toy. They practise making their ideas tangible and learn from making mistakes. Finally they present their designs to each other, allowing the others to ask questions and give feedback. In doing so, they practise their communication skills and their capacity to reflect. From the third workshop onward, the facilitator has to introduce the topic and questions to the children himself, replacing the video. The facilitator can find suggestions for topics and stories in the manual to help him come up with other challenges for the kids. This toolkit gives children in Okana a fun pastime through which they are introduced to the design process, and can develop valuable design skills. This toolkit has given SRI the knowledge and tools to host those workshops. It has also given SRI a model they can use to effectively transfer knowledge from external partners to the local community.

This report delves into the challenging process of translating complex tests from the Child Brain Lab into a design that is both accessible and engaging for children. The Child Brain Lab, part of the Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital, conducts research on brain development to gain a better understanding of the course of brain disorders and improve treatments for children with brain disorders. In return for children’s participation in the lab, the hospital aims to provide them with a child-friendly patient dossier: The Self-portrait. The goal of this project is:

To design a digital solution that translates the results from a selection of tests that are performed in the Child Brain Lab, into a meaningful contribution for children (developmental age 6-12 years old) with brain disorders, that will increase their participation in their care path, and positively support their developing self-image.

To design a solution that caters to the needs of the child patients, first the problem space was explored, through literature research and interviews with stakeholders. Within the age range of the target audience, children develop their language skills and transition from imaginative thinking to more logical reasoning. These cognitive abilities influence the formation of their self-image, which led to the framework for contributing to self-image: ‘Look what I did’ - ‘Look how I did it’ - ‘Look how I did it and what I learned from it.’ This framework was used to adapt the app to the needs of the target audience. In addition, the participants’ brain disorders present additional challenges, such as poor eyesight and a need for predictability.

The tests for which a translation is being made in the app are the EEG, IQ test, and walking mat. Each of these tests comes with its own set of challenges. For example, the data from the EEG test is complex and elusive for children, and the analysis is quite intricate for physicians. The results of the IQ test are highly valued.
The discovery phase revealed five trade-offs, such as the balance between providing honest information or protecting a child by sharing only positive information. The insights led to the design goal:

Create a personally rewarding visualization of the test-data of the EEG, IQ-test and walking mat for each child that visits the CBL, by highlighting their personal achievements and empowering children to become aware of and accept who they are, in a form that is integrated in the clinical workflow of the Pediatric Brain Centre, and supportive during the full care journey, so that HCPs see the Self-portrait as an enrichment to their work.

The result is an interactive prototype of The Self-portrait, inviting children to explore the world of their own brains. Each test is developed with its own character. For instance in the case of the walking mat, animals are used to give children insights into their walking patterns, envisioning enriched dialogues between children and physiotherapists, potentially leading to improvements.

Throughout the app’s development, all stakeholders have been involved multiple times, ensuring the right balance is struck in the design between presenting accurate information aligned with clinical practice while also appealing to children.

Through this endeavor, the project aims to bridge the gap between complex medical data and child-friendly interpretations, fostering a better understanding and engagement with one’s health metrics.

Children with disabilities (CwD) experience many barriers decreasing their quality of life and hindering their development. Child therapists support CwD and parents of children with disabilities (PCwD) to participate in daily activities. However, the child therapists indicated to be missing the practical tools to also facilitate inclusive outdoor play. For this reason, the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (HU) set up the Samen spelen project. The Samen spelen project found that PCwD and parents of children with typical development (PCwTD) play a role in the barriers CwD experience as there is a knowledge gap between them. This thesis was set up in collaboration with the HU to further explore the knowledge gap and the role increased parental contact can play in decreasing the barriers CwD experience.
It was found that PCwTD rarely come into contact with CwD and therefore lack the knowledge and skills to treat CwD properly and teach children with typical development (CwTD) about CwD. Additionally, mainly the differences between CwTD and CwD are perceived, preventing the normalisation of CwD.
Based on these findings, the design vision is formulated. The vision focuses on stimulating direct contact between CwD, PCwD, CwTD and PCwTD by guiding the parents to provide input for inclusive play. Followed by stimulating PCwD to help PCwTD correct the children during inclusive play and highlighting the similarities between the children.
Based on this vision, de Voelvlek is designed. The Voelvlek consists of a sensory rug, abstractly shaped balls called ‘monstertjes’ and play cards. The monstertjes are dynamic objects that stimulate spontaneous interaction between PCwD and PCwTD and stimulate bystanders to join the play. The parents can mix and match the play cards to facilitate inclusive play ideas for their children. By discussing the common interests of the children for the play, PCwTD learn about the similarities between CwD and CwTD. When the children are playing the PCwTD can continue this learning process through observation and the questions on the play cards. The play cards use different kinds of questions to stimulate parental interaction and help PCwTD reflect on their behaviour towards CwD and PCwTD.

This graduation project has been carried out in the context of the research project ‘Co-Design with Kids: Early acquisition of 21st century skills’ at the TU Delft.
To prepare families with kids for the open-ended challenges of the 21st century, essential skills such as creative thinking, communication, and empathy should be mastered early on. Due to the growing interest in acquainting children with these creative problem-solving skills at a young age, research has been being carried out on design toolkits specifically aimed at children.
The central aim of this graduation project has been to explore the potential of a family-friendly design game—with a fun-factor—that engages kids to learn and practice essential 21st century skills through an open and creative mindset. The examination of literature in the interest of this topic outlined the foundation for a set of design criteria.
In the conceptualisation phase, a selection of game mechanisms has been used to generate a variety of ideas. These ideas were then clustered using a morphological map, resulting in three design directions. Through iterative design cycles, these design directions have been developed to a concept level. Using predefined design criteria, the most promising concept has been selected through a weighted scoring method. This concept has been developed into a paper prototype to evaluate with the target group.
A practice-based research methodology has been employed, through 5 playtesting sessions with families with kids ages 8 and up. Qualitative data has been gathered through several sources, such as interviews, observations, generated ideas, and film footage. In total, 3 prototypes have been evaluated and developed through the ‘Build, Measure, Learn’ loop. The key insights gained through the playtesting sessions with families show a positive relationship between the embedded game elements and a fun-factor. Overall, through a safe game environment with mild competition, a fun gaming experience is evoked through an open and creative attitude.
The insights coming forth from this practice-based study have led to a family-friendly design game for the consumer market. The final design has taken the first steps in making children acquainted with the 21st century skills in a safe and competitive game environment. The findings may be of great interest for other game designers and design education in general. The argument put forth here is that if a game has a fun-factor, players would feel more inclined to play and replay a game. Further research should investigate if repeatedly playing this game increases learning efficiency of the 21st century skills.

In het hedendaagse onderwijs wordt steeds meer aandacht besteed aan 21e-eeuwse vaardigheden. Ontwerpend leren is een goed middel om leerlingen 21e-eeuwse vaardigheden bij te brengen, aldus de Verkenningscommissie wetenschap en technologie primair onderwijs (2013). Om sturing te geven aan ontwerpend leren zijn de breed geformuleerde 21e-eeuwse vaardigheden door Klapwijk, Kok, Visschedijk en Holla (2017) verder gespecificeerd en aangevuld tot zeven ontwerpvaardigheden. Om te bepalen wat formatieve evaluatie van ontwerpvaardigheden oplevert, is onderzocht welke invloed het formatief evalueren van de ontwerpvaardigheid divergent denken heeft op het leerproces van leerlingen in de bovenbouw van het primair onderwijs.

Om deze vraag te beantwoorden is een casestudie opgezet binnen de context ‘Gymmen in de toekomst’, waarin leerlingen uit groep 8 van het primair onderwijs een nieuw gymspel ontwerpen in groepen van vier leerlingen. In de casestudie zijn twee interventies van formatieve evaluatie opgenomen. In de eerste interventie voorafgaand aan het brainstormen, hebben de leerlingen klassikaal de leerdoelen van de ontwerpvaardigheid verhelderd door gezamenlijk adviezen op te stellen om divergent te denken. In de tweede interventie is de brainstorm stilgelegd om te bepalen of de leerlingen aan deze succescriteria voldoen (feedback) en waar nodig het proces bij te sturen (feed forward). 

Uit het onderzoek is gebleken dat de twee aangereikte werkvormen voor formatieve evaluatie de leerlingen ondersteunen bij het divergent denken. Door het opstellen succescriteria voor divergent denken in de werkvorm vaardigheid in beeld, hebben de leerlingen een gemeenschappelijke taal ontwikkeld waarmee zij de ontwerpvaardigheid divergent denken kunnen concretiseren. Uit de post-interviews blijkt dat het nadenken over de invulling van de ontwerpvaardigheid divergent denken, en het vastleggen hiervan in woord en beeld, een effectieve aanpak is om de leerdoelen voor de leerlingen te verhelderen. 

De werkvorm op de goede weg? ondersteunt de leerlingen bij het bepalen van het eigen niveau ten opzichte van de gestelde succescriteria voor de vaardigheid divergent denken. De werkvorm helpt de leerlingen om te bepalen welk deel van de vaardigheid zij al beheersen en waar zij zichzelf kunnen verbeteren. Zo bleek bij het stilleggen van de brainstorm dat veel leerlingen vooral binnen één ideegroep (balspelen) aan het divergeren waren, waardoor er weinig gevarieerd werd. Bij het bepalen van de volgende stap in het leerproces van de leerling is de werkvorm minder effectief gebleken, aangezien de werkvorm voorziet in klassikale feedback die niet toegespitst is op het proces van de individuele leerling of dat van de projectgroep. 

Concluderend kan worden gesteld dat het formatief evalueren van de ontwerpvaardigheid divergent denken ervoor heeft gezorgd dat de leerlingen zich beter bewust zijn van deze ontwerpvaardigheid. De leerlingen hebben een helder beeld van de vaardigheid en kunnen dat verwoorden in hun eigen taal. Daarnaast stelt het de leerlingen in staat om voor zichzelf te bepalen in welke mate zijn de vaardigheid beheersen, het helpt de leerling om te identificeren wat goed gaat en wat verbeterd kan worden. In het bepalen van een actie om het divergente denken te verbeteren ondersteunt de werkvorm in dit onderzoek onvoldoende. 

Dutch children achieve an insufficient amount of physical activity. For that reason, Delft University of Technology is looking to develop a wearable that contributes to motivating children to move more frequently and more intensely while collecting data on the movements made by its wearer. In this thesis it was investigated whether it would be possible to identify the activities performed by free-living children and what type of data from which body placement should be obtained in order to do so. Due to restrictions resulting from COVID-19, triaxial accelerometer- and gyroscope measurements of typical child play activities were carried out on various body parts of eight adults. A Long-Short Term Memory algorithm was applied to short sequential sections of summarized accelerometer data. This algorithm gives a prediction of the activity executed by the wearer of a triaxial accelerometer for every 10 seconds in time. The effects of the wear-site (left wrist, right wrist, right hip, left ankle or right ankle), type of accelerometer (low noise or wide range) and epoch length (0.25, 0.33, 0.5 or 1 second) were studied. The shortest epoch length was found to result in the most precise predictions per activity and the highest overall accuracy for classifying the activities. The hip and right wrist placement perform better than the other locations. A wrist placement is favored over the hip because a heart rate sensor can be added to the former. Measuring the heart rate in combination with classifying the activities performed gives insight in both intensity and variety of movements made by children. To further increase the performance of these classifications, predictions made with a score below a certain threshold, 0.775 in this thesis, can be excluded. This will decrease the amount of classifications made but it improves the accuracy as well as causing the precision with which each activity is recognized to rise. Without excluding results with a score below this threshold value, classifications of low noise 0.25 second epoch data from the right wrists have an accuracy of 74.8% and a precision per activity of 54.5% - 82.1%. Removing the more uncertain predictions yields an accuracy of 84.0% and a precision between 57.8% - 91.5%. Clustering specific activities, such as sitting and lying down, increases the precision considerably. The accuracy and precisions when applying sitting and lying down as one cluster in combination with removing the uncertain predictions for the low noise sensor become 85.4% and 70.1% - 92.2%. Before this algorithm can be successfully implemented in combination with the intended wearable, the precision with which each individual activity is identified should be <90%. To transfer the collected accelerometer- and heart rate data to a smartphone, it is recommended to use NFC technology. Through a smartphone application it can then be made available for research purposes and the children can get feedback on the variety and quantity of their physical activity of the past two days. A battery that is appropriately sized for a child's wrist wearable will only be able to power the wearable for a few days. This is an insufficient battery life for the intended use, so the battery has to be charged. NFC technology additionally offers energy harvesting capabilities, making it possible to wirelessly charge the wearable via a smartphone. From this exploratory research it can be concluded that it will be challenging to develop a low-cost wearable that can identify activities and measure how frequently free-living children are physically active. This is the case for both software, the algorithm that predicts which activities were performed, and hardware, where the most pressing challenge is the battery life. However, it is believed that with more extensive research it is possible to create a fully operational wearable.

Play objects designed for for rebellious play offer possibilities for physically and socially active play and derives its play value from balancing rebellion and conformism, rulemaking and rule-breaking. In doing so it is aimed to provide a setting where children can behave in ways that may not normally be stimulated. playing with a rebellious toy is meant to help children to explore the boundaries of how they can behave and the consequences that might derive from that, in a safe and playful way. The concept of rebellious play was introduced in the paper ‘Rebel by Design’ (Gielen & Van Leeuwen, 2013). BlockMe is a first attempt to methodically study an intentionally designed rebellious toy. The BlockMe prototype toy that resulted from this vision consists of a building block set that allows for quick creation of child-sized tower structures. Two of these blocks were made interactive and acted as a sort of time-bomb. these interactive blocks would respond to loud sounds, waking the block up. Subsequently it gets progressively more agitated over time. When the interactive block reaches a certain level of ‘agitation’ it starts to vigorously shake, causing the construction to collapse. Before this happens the block can also be calmed and ‘subdued’ by gently touching and stroking it. By doing so the construction can be saved. By offering these opposite play schemes the concepts plays on a perceived struggle between the inherent joy of creating something, but also the excitement of eventually destroying what was built. Offering these two possibilities is meant to provide an incentive to switch from one to the other when the urge arises to do so. It acts as an incentive for children to balance their individual desires with group expectations. This should result in a potentially difficult decision to make: do you (selfishly) act by reacting on these urges, or do you continue to be in service of the group and conform by doing what is expected of you? A study was conducted to put the BlockMe prototype to the test. To do so observations were conducted at a primary school, where four play sessions were organized. A total of 47 children, both boys and girls aged from 8-10 years old, participated in the study in groups of varying sizes. From the observations there were 38 relevant play situations identified. Only 4 of which were determined to have happened because of the prototype. It seems therefore clear that play with the prototype did not lead to any structural rebellious behavior. Fundamentally, it seems that the opposite possibilities for play that BlockMe is supposed to provide, do not actually manifest themselves as such in the prototype that was trailed. Seeing as this is the main mechanism that is supposed to trigger rebelliousness and conflict, the general perceived absence of these opposite possibilities in the prototype may provide an explanation for the lack of intended rebelliousness

The Child Brain Lab (CBL), a part of the Paediatric Brain Centre at Sophia Children’s Hospital within the Erasmus Medical Centre, is a scientific research and testing facility dedicated to children with brain conditions (CB). These children frequently experience isolation and lack of social contact due to their situations. These observations lead to the following research question, “How can design empower participants aged six to eighteen in the Child Brain Lab to use peer-sharing for preparation and support during their visits effectively?”

As CB frequently visit the hospital and are familiar with the medical setting, a CBL visit does not trigger much stress. So, it became clear that the main challenge was not solely to reduce stress but to empower these children to share their experiences, gain control, and connect with their peers. The CBL provided an ideal opportunity to address these needs as it aims to test hundreds of CB annually. CB did express a desire to be informed about procedures and often felt alone during hospital visits.

Several key findings were established from this research. Firstly, it became clear that children with brain conditions (CB) have unique knowledge from their personal experiences and are therefore experts in the area of their condition. Secondly, these children have a strong desire to help others and to learn new things. In addition, a number of barriers were recognised that CB often face, including limited information and empathy that does not meet their needs. To address these challenges, the approach focuses on creating a safe and supportive environment for peer interaction, bridging information gaps and simplifying complex medical language, by equal communication.

As a result, the design goal is to empower participants of the CBL to recognise their expertise and support them to express their experiences and share them with their peers.

These findings led to Lab Maatjes, a peer-sharing app tailored to the CBL journey. It was designed around the principles of self-determination theory. For autonomy, the app allows users to explore what CBL involves and why it is important. It also offers guidance and support to navigate the app and express themselves independently. It promotes competence by allowing them to share their stories, feel heard and seen, and gather the information they want to know. Finally, it provides relatedness by creating a trusted environment where they can connect with peers and gain insight into their experiences and how they relate to their views. Lab Maatjes creates an engaging preparation process that puts participants in control, makes them feel valued for their contributions to the CBL and ensures that they do not feel alone as they connect with peers.

This thesis concludes with an evaluation of the app, using the feedback of the CBL participants for quick iterations. The final sections of this report identify areas for improvement and recommendations for implementing the design, including creating two versions of the app for different age groups, implementing advanced features such as audio recording, and doing more research on the sharing behaviours of the participants.