Press Release
Jiayu Yao Receives the A' Design Award for Hanzi Storytelling Box Block Toy in Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design
Jiayu Yao recognized for education, teaching aid and training content design by the international grand jury of the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 20, 2023 /DesignNewswire/ Hanzi Storytelling Box Block Toy by Jiayu Yao, designed for Zhejiang University, has been granted the A' Design Award in the Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design category, A' Design Award & Competition has announced. The recognition forms part of the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The A' Design Award Explained
The Iron A' Design Award is awarded to good designs that meet the rigorous professional and industrial standards set by the A' Design Awards. This recognition is reserved for works that demonstrate a solid understanding of design principles and show creativity within their execution. Recipients of the Iron A' Design Award are acknowledged for their practical innovations and contributions to their respective fields, providing solutions that improve quality of life and foster positive change. These designs are a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, showcasing their ability to address real-world challenges through thoughtful design.
More About Hanzi Storytelling Box Block Toy
The Hanzi Storytelling Box is an innovative toy block that makes learning Chinese characters fun and interactive for young children. It uses the pictographic nature of characters, along with visual and auditory elements, to help learners recognize and remember them better. The accompanying app provides additional learning resources, such as words, sentences, writing strokes, and associative drawing, children can also record their own Chinese character stories to upload to blocks.
About Jiayu Yao
With a degree in digital media technology and industrial design, Jiayu Yao has a keen interest in exploring the intersection between technology and art. Her work is her pride and joy, and she aims to design unique and impactful visuals that can make a meaningful difference. She is highly motivated to use her skills in the fields of AI, interactive design, and HCI, and is constantly seeking out new and innovative ways to combine design and technology into effective solutions. Her passion and drive to explore new horizons in the world of design motivate her to stay ahead of the curve and continue to hone her craft.
Award Record
Jiayu Yao is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design Award
The A' Education Design Award is an international competition recognizing good education products and projects by leading designers and brands worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to education designers, teaching aid designers, training content creators and curriculum developers from all countries. Typical entries include textbooks, e-learning platforms, educational games, training manuals, instructional videos and interactive whiteboards. The awarded education designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/education
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/149040
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/149040
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!149040
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/330704
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Hanzi Storytelling Box Block Toy
- Function
- Block Toy
- Category
- Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design
- Discipline
- Service Design
- Industry
- Education
- Colors
- Gold, Tomato, Rosy Brown, Cornflower Blue and Olive Drab
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Zhejiang University
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Jiayu Yao
- Country
- China
- Recognition
- A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2022 - 2023
- Design ID
- #149040
Credits
- Team
- Jing Zhang, Jiayi Ma, Yuqi Zhang, Weijia Lin, Sheng Yang, Shuyue Feng and Cheng Yao
- Image Credits
- Jiayu Yao、Jiayi Ma、Jing Zhang，2022
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Hanzi Storytelling Box is a meaningful block toy that supports young children to engage with Chinese characters in a more friendly way. The toy kit uses the pictographic nature of characters, blending visual and auditory to help learners recognize and remember them. The toy divides characters into three categories by theme: nature (yellow), people (blue), and artifacts (red). Young children are encouraged to appreciate the beauty of Chinese characters, explore their mysteries, and find learning fun and engaging.
- Inspiration
- Children often consider Chinese characters to be complex, boring, and irregular, which leads to children's anxiety about learning Chinese characters. By analyzing the cognitive characteristics, age characteristics, and literacy rules of lower-grade students, the Hanzi Storytelling Box is designed based on the "child-oriented" design principle.
- Research
- By combining Montessori's sensitive period for senses and Piaget's constructivism theories, and conducting a user study with children aged 3-6 years, the toy uses common objects in daily life as visual representations of Chinese characters. The existing knowledge of the children was utilized to assimilate new knowledge of Chinese characters. The radicals are key to learning Chinese characters, and the Hanzi Storytelling Box allows for free combinations between radical blocks to form different Chinese characters with clear visual elements that present the role of different radicals in the overall Chinese character.
- Challenge
- The first challenge was to categorize and classify the Chinese characters that preschoolers need to learn. The toy divided these characters into three categories based on their meanings and used different colors to show the distinction. The second challenge was to visualize the characters by creating easy-to-understand patterns that fit their meanings. To do this, the toy described the meaning of each character through a one-sentence story in relation to its pattern.
- Realization and Technology
- TECHNOLOGY: UX design process, Rhinoceros, Keyshot, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Arduino, Electronic circuit technology MATERIALS: Wooden
- Operation and Interaction
- First, the child can freely play with the character blocks. They can place a single block or combine two blocks to form a specific character on the Storytelling Box. After pushing the box button, the description of the Chinese characters and the related fable will be broadcasted by the box. Secondly, the accompanying app allows users to record their own Chinese character stories and play them with the physical toy. The app also provides additional learning resources, such as words, sentences, writing strokes, associative drawing, and review. These resources can help children learn Chinese characters holistically and easily.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in March 2022 and finished in October 2022 in Ningbo.
- Specifications
- Chinese character module: 50mm*50mm*6mm and 70mm*70mm*6mm Speech recognition module: 140mm*140mm*70mm Specifications: LED, Speaker, RFID Tag and Reader, Button, Battery
- Keywords
- Education, Young children, Block toy, Chinese characters, Electronic toys
