Design Nature

Olin School of Engineering

The Challenge

In a team of four, we designed a bio-inspired game play to engage and delight fourth graders. With the baby sea turtle as our inspiration, we designed, prototyped, and built a toy that mimics the crawling motion of a newborn sea turtle.

Knowing that a toy is not enough, we designed a compelling story that centers around the journey that sea turtles undertake as they hatch in the sand and make their trip to the ocean with natural light to guide them.

Design Goal

Our design goal is to create an interactive, emotional, and educational experience for fourth graders that centers around baby sea turtles. We want to instill companionship between the fourth grader and the cute turtle. While our main focus is to appeal to our audience, we are also taking into consideration the needs of teachers and parents as well as ourselves as designers.

Our goal is to create an experience that accurately reflects how one will feel as if they were encouraging newborn turtles to reach the ocean in real life. We are building a durable turtle that moves according to the light movement of a flashlight.

Budget

Of our budget of $100 to develop our play project, we planned to use $61 and saving the remainder as emergency funds. We allocated funds accurately, and produced our project well under the budget.

CADing

Using the program SolidWorks, we created CAD models in addition to sketch models, simulation videos and drawings. Finalizing the size of all the parts, we 3D printed the legs and part of the body.

Constructing the Play Experience

Story line: The sun is beginning to set and newborn turtles must make it to the ocean before the sky grows dark. Light guides the turtles to the ocean and without sunlight, they will be left behind. It’s your (fourth grader) job to guide the turtles with the flashlight safely to the water without bumping into the obstacles (crab, seagulls, octopi).

Part of our design goal is to create a companionship between the turtle and the fourth grader. Appealing to the emotions, we want fourth graders to feel the enth

Play Experience

Final Game Play Demonstration

The circuits inside the turtle allows the front legs to rotate and the back legs are dragged. Light sensors are placed on the head in the hopes that turtle will follow the beam of a flashlight.

Final Game Play Demonstration

Two hours before the showing, our light sensors ceased to work. We decided on having the children guide the turtle as the turtle moved forward. They helped the turtle dodge obstacles on sand-covered cardboard.