Press Release
Dwarfs ASD Children Educational Kit by Man Wai Wong Receives the A' Design Award in Toys, Games and Hobby Products Design
Man Wai Wong recognized for toys, games and hobby products design by the international grand jury of the 2019 - 2020 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 23, 2020 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Dwarfs ASD Children Educational Kit by Man Wai Wong has been granted the A' Design Award in the Toys, Games and Hobby Products Design category. The result belongs to the 2019 - 2020 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided 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.
What the A' Design Award Means
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.
Regarding Dwarfs ASD Children Educational Kit
Dwarfs is an educational kit for children with autism spectrum disorder aged six to twelve who study in ordinary schools. The kit consists of an Emoboard and small blocks called Emobjects. A social worker guides the play. The child looks at an Emobject, touches it and places it on the Emoboard, which then plays a sound linked to a negative emotion. The child guesses the emotion and checks the answer cards, then selects another Emobject that soothes it. Sight, touch and hearing are used to support emotion expression and control and to encourage communication.
Award Record
Man Wai Wong is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Toys, Games and Hobby Products Design Award
The A' Toy Design Award is an international toy design competition recognizing good toy designs by best toy designers, manufacturers and brands worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to toy designers, game studios, industrial designers and hobby product manufacturers from all countries. Typical entries include dolls, action figures, board games, puzzles, plush toys and educational toys. The awarded toy designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/toy
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/88745
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/88745
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!88745
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/252300
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://jackwong19971125.wixsite.com/jackwong
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
- Dwarfs ASD Children Educational Kit
- Function
- ASD Children Educational Kit
- Category
- Toys, Games and Hobby Products Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Kids
- Colors
- Lavender, Light Gray, Dark Slate Blue, Light Steel Blue and Cornflower Blue
- Images
- 5
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Man Wai Wong
- Country
- Hong Kong (China)
- Recognition
- A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2019 - 2020
- Design ID
- #88745
Credits
- Team
- Chi Wing Lee
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- There are two aspects that the ASD children are not good at, emotion and communication, the product aims to improve the children's social lives by training these two aspects. The product targets 6 - 12 years old ASD children who are educated in ordinary schools. It involves a playing process with a social worker to educate the children about emotion expression and emotion control. In the process, visual, tactile and auditory sensation of the children will be triggered, so that the children will have more and deeper communication with the social worker instead of only verbal communication, eventually their social skills will be improved.
- Inspiration
- Under Integrated Education in Hong Kong, some ASD students were being labelled because of their different behaviours, many of them just do not know how to express their feelings and emotions properly. Therefore, this became the starting point of the project. In the design, different sensations were involved because I took tactile therapy as a reference. It inspired me to arrange stimulation of different sensations so that ASD children will be triggered to have more and deeper communication since some of them are not good at verbal communication.
- Research
- A first hand research was conducted in 2018, included observation on some ASD children and an interview with a social worker who was working on some projects about ASD children. The research was to know about what kind of difficulties or issues that the ASD children and social worker face in their usual lives. A first hand survey was conducted in 2019 in order to collect people's impression on different emotions for the design development. The participants were required to draw the colours and anything that could recall their different emotional memories. 30 people participated in the survey, included adults, children and ASD children.
- Challenge
- The most challenging issue in the project would be the technology part. RFID technology and digital programming were definitely difficult for a product designer. Therefore, a former IT tutor in Hong Kong Polytechnic University was invited to help with these parts.
- Realization and Technology
- In the design, RFID technology is added to complete the auditory stimulation. Also, digital programming of Arduino and Pure Data are also involved.
- Operation and Interaction
- The gaming process is held by a social worker while an ASD child is the participant. First, the child is required to pick up an Emobject that represents a negative emotion. He has to observe it by eyes, touch it by ears and put it on the Emoboard, the Emoboard will then produce a sound that represents that specific negative emotion. After the whole observation, the child will guess which negative emotion that the Emobject represents. He can check the answers with the answer cards. After, the child is required to use the observation method mentioned above to guess another Emobject that represents a negative emotion, which can soothe the previous negative emotion.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project is a Product Design student final year project finished in Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The project started in September 2018 in Hong Kong and finished in May 2019 also in Hong Kong, half of the duration was for research stage, half was for design stage. It was exhibited at the Design Annual Show 2019 in Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
- Specifications
- Emoboard: Width 400mm x Depth 400mm x Height 283mm Each Emobject: About Width 70mm x Depth 70mm x Height 70mm
- Keywords
- autism, education, sensation, communication
