Volunteers, University of Cincinnati students, and others are undertaking a mission Friday to transform more than 200 toys, making them more accessible to children with limited fine motor skills or restricted hand movement.
"We are bringing together engineers, designers, industry partners, along with all of our wonderful students to support our kids with both physical and cognitive disabilities to allow them to have toys that help them grow as people this holiday season," Aaron Burdette, assistant professor of practice in UC's Biomedical Engineering Department and director of the Medical Device Design program, tells WVXU.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, participants will rewire 230 toys, adding power switch adapters that enable the toy to be activated with a simple, large push button.
"Toys today, they all have buttons — little tiny buttons — and they have sensory inputs that they want kids to engage with. But, the thing is, they're designed for kids with traditional physical mobility ability," Burdette explains. "We selected the toys that have buttons and light-ups that we can rewire to have access to bigger or large scale buttons (so) that if they're 10 feet away from the toy, or two feet away from the toy, they're able to play with that toy by pressing a bigger button."
Working with a group called , biomedical engineering students spent six months analyzing hundreds of toys to determine which ones could be easily modified. Out of nearly 300 options, they selected their top five, which were then donated by community members.
Once they're modified, the toys will be wrapped and given to kids across the region as part of May We Help's Tinker Toy Box Program.
Toys include a techno robot that lights up and talks, a Spider-man toy that drives around, and Burdette's personal favorite, Elsa from "Frozen."
"One of our big toys that I'm super excited to modify is our Elsa toy. We want her to sing, 'Let it Go.' We want to make sure that the big button there is there for her to light up and sing it for the holiday season," he says, grinning.
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