"Cold Pot"
A Food Science Chemistry Toy Kit For Kids
a toy lets kids to imitate hot pot making process
based on the simplest modern molecular gastronomy recipe.
* Preschool STEAM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math)toy create dynamic learning experiences that engage and connect with young learners so they can grow up to be the creative innovators of our future world.
This design work is the outcome of a studio class named "Shape of Taste" which teaches by professor Khipra Nichols in RISD ID. The goal of the studio is for students to experience the exciting world of the “Investigative Designer” within the dynamic area of culinary arts.
To help students have a better understanding of the needs of young chefs and the relation of designers and users, we visited industrial kitchens, retail spaces, food entrepreneurs, and other places.
During the whole semester, Khipra helps me to practice Design Research techniques and help me to build the attitude of the Investigative Designer, and a Mindful Approach to Design Thinking. I did lots of interviews with different people from different backgrounds, and we also organized some in-class activities of food and cooking. It helps me to think about what kind of role that smell, taste, aroma, color, texture, and form can play in my design work.
As product designers, we too must learn how to appeal to the more sensual, emotional and spiritual aspects of human experience while providing practical, appropriate and inspiring product solutions.
My #0 round of research is based on our field trip. I found that there are so many factors which related with kitchen or kids product, basically it depends on material and color, but i found that culture part play a really important role on kitchen product, because we have totally different cuisine culture. And also role play and storytelling is a strong way to attract kids attention.
Then bring me to the first round brainstorm. When I thought about the relation between TOY and TOOL , I found these 2 different toys. Obviously These two toys are really common in US, and all related with food making. The left one is a kind of tool toy, the purpose is to educate kids how to use the machine, but I want to say that is all based on baking culture. When I did my research about oven I found that in China only 10% of family have oven and mixer in their home. The number really shocked me but that means the culture boundary is really a big deal in cuisine.
But the Mr. potato head is different, No matter where the kids comes from, they will play with it, you don’t need to teach them how to interact with it even don't need to consider the age of that kid.
"Make food in a playful and creative way."
"Making the exploring process meaningful."
#1 Interview
For my first round of research, I did a interview with my little niece in Beijing, China. Her name is Xiao and she is only 3 years old but she already have motivation on making food. She always help her parents to make dumplings like like rolling, poking and squishing dough.
After did a short conversation with her mother, I know that her favorite toy is Play-Doh, when I started to see her play and interact with Play-Doh, I found that there are 3 initial factors when kids are playing.
1. Made by me.
Children are more enjoyable in the process of making something by themselves, because is about sense of achievement.
2. Role play.
Children always wants to imitate adults, is a kind of natural reaction.
3. Sense of Color &Shape.
When we talk about the biggest challenge of teaching kids to cook most of parents will say that “Recipes involve steps to follow and quantities to measure. Both of these factors make recipes difficult for children to follow and understand.” Obviously, compare with the adult's recipes, for kids, use color and shape as the language are simpler and easier for them to understand.
Questionnaire
After interview, I design a questionnaire about kids in the kitchen. I handed it out to people from different country background and I the result shows that the biggest challenge for kids to cook is the safety problem
(Knife🔪, Fire🔥, Heat) and also about patient(cannot focus if it takes a long time), interest and attention. When I ask about which part of cooking is the most interesting for kids, they mentioned play with the dough, use the mixer and blender, also sometime pretend to be an adult.
Deep research &Brain Storm
Based on the result I got, I started doing my #2 round of research, I feel that cooking is a kind of art, and I try to think about the relation between color flavor and form, because I found that kids will use their eyes👀/mouth👄/nose👃and hands✋to feel and understand the surrounding world. The informations they got in this way are more realistic and more understandable.
The concept of this toy is a food science chemistry toy set to imitate the real hot pot making process in a safe way. My goal is to let children learn new things based on their own exploration and curiosity and also get the experience of cooking.
How?
The knowledge-based on the simplest molecular gastronomy recipes (chemical term: spherification check the link down). The whole process is to make some blender and pour different juice into the pot to form different shapes (solid).
Explore & Play
Let kids explore and play with the color and flavor based on how it looks and tastes and inspire their sense of color in a more understandable way. Also, the result is edible, they can eat what they created.
Raise Motivation
It is exciting to see some familiar ingredients of life have some dramatic change in its physical form. (liquid 👉 solid) (The meaning of this toy will vary depending on the age of the user. Playful/ Raise their curiosity/ Learn some chemistry knowledge.)
2 cup of water + 1 tsp calcium lactate powder. 1/2 of juice + 1/4 tsp sodium alginate powder.
Packaging Design
Before I start to think about packaging design, I did a lots of test about the methods to hold shape of the juice mix.
There are no description under the graphic, so kids do not need to read it. I only used shapes numbers and colors to make this little recipe book.
And also, after I talked with people in hasbro fun lab an Children’s museum, I reconsidered the target user group and context, They told me I need to consider all the possibilities which gonna happen when they play with it, maybe they will try to mix every powder together, but the ingredients inside is all food safe and edible, so is not really a problem. And Im thinking that for the context it also can be some activity in museum or school, because is really fun for younger kids to play with something based on science.
