About the workshop

In Armenia, children with disorders are often not well cared for. Sometimes they are rejected by their families, and special education programmes for them are almost non-existent. To bring more awareness to these issues and offer childcare facilities in Armenia, local and international organizations have invited a group of therapists and designers to create new toys for children in rehabilitation. The resulting toys will be modified, copied and tested for three months by children with and without special needs. The organisers will arrange further development of toys and publish a book with instructions for anyone on how to make them.

Beyond the workshop, a symposium and exhibition were organized to bring these issues into a public discussion.


Finger Finder
One skill that many children have to practice is the fine motor control of their fingers. A toy that would make this exercise more fun is the Finger Finder, a glove that hides magnets of different sizes and different polarities in its fingertips. Some fingers might snap together, while others cannot touch at all.  The powers of the fingertips are also represented visually by symbols. Therefore it also becomes a logic game about finding the matching fingers. The fingertips can be swapped so that the fingers don't always behave the same way.

With two gloves, the game of attract and repulse can be played between both hands and with other children. Also they can go around exploring the magnetic behaviours of different objects towards their fingers.

This project was in collaboration with Agota Demko, teacher for special needs.


Iceberg Raft

During my visit to a Yerevan kindergarten, there were several children who inspired me to make the Iceberg Raft, especially two girls who refused to behave in some expected ways:

Marta did not, by any means, want to sit on any wooden chair by herself. As soon as she would realize that her nurses had tricked her, suddenly feeling a solid stool, she would jump up and away across the room.

Flora, with her fair hair and bright eyes would never focus on anyone, nor would she concentrate much on anything. She would keep talking and playing as if no one else was there - not even herself, as she would speak of Flora as some third person. Naturally, she didn't play much with other children or make friends with them.

What it is
The Iceberg represents a small piece of floating land, on which a child can move around to explore the surrounding territory and feel at the same time protected like in a nest. Through the big hole in the middle of the raft, they can reach the ground with their feet to push themselves forward, but also locate fish, and catch them from the carpet with a magnetic rod.
To demonstrate the success of their hunt, they can attach the fish visibly on the outside of the Iceberg. However, that also invites other children to approach with their rafts and steal the fish away again.

Play value
Besides exercising body and legs, and practicing fine motor skills and concentration when trying to catch the fish, the iceberg is a toy that can help shy children to feel more confident in their actions. It offers a way to explore a big space from a safe spot, and interact or even compete with other children who float around on icebergs as well.

Special thanks for support on this toy to Antal Kelle and Isabella Steffan.

Both toys, Finger Finder and Iceberg Raft will be tested by children in the coming months.