Little Rider: Quick Prototype

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Multi-Use Seesaw

Nila Arumugam, Savvas Spyridopoulos, YuHsing Wu

We decided to design a seesaw that had a curved space in the middle that acts as a seat. The middle seat can provide space for a third child to play, or it can be used for one kid to play alone by standing or sitting in it.

There are at least five ways to play on the seesaw, but when we did user testing the children found even more.

Observations & Feedback

The youngest toddler liked having the agency to propel herself up and down, and we were told she was interested in our rocker for longer than usual. The kids intuitively used empty spaces as storage for any random object that fit. They also turned over toys that were arched or dome-shaped, and then climbed on them or went under them (one child called ours a "bridge").

Two of the kids told us what colors they would want on the toy but ultimately, the toy was fun enough for them to keep coming back to it. They said it was "flippy", meaning we made the rocking dimensions extreme enough to be novel for repeated uses. Also, one of the boys liked standing in the middle of our toy (like a balance board) and said it was like a skateboard.

Our design with the seat in the middle was successful, the kids could play alone on it, or it served as a seat for a third person.