@Mihika You’ve made a good start with your introduction. To strengthen your design brief, make sure to include a section on Design Constraints and Requirements. This should clearly outline any limitations (like materials, time, size, or resources) and what your solution must achieve.

I initially chose the Marie Cat toy design because it aligned well with the project’s goals, offering emotional comfort through a soft and friendly appearance. However, during the production process, I found that the design was too complex to create effectively. As a result, I decided to change the design to a Poké Ball, which better fits the practical aspects of the project while still being meaningful for children.

Specific: The Poké Ball is simple, playful, and much more widely recognized by children, making it emotionally engaging in a different yet effective way.
Measurable: It captures children's attention easily and can still evoke joy and excitement through its familiar form.
Achievable: Unlike the Marie Cat design, the Poké Ball is much easier to produce.
Realistic: Its round shape and straightforward construction make it a better choice for limited-time production.
Testable: The Poké Ball toy is sturdy and durable, and like the original idea, it can also pass a basic drop test from 1 meter.

Overall, the Poké Ball design is a SMART solution—Simple, Meaningful, Attractive, Realistic, and Time-efficient—making it well-suited to the project’s purpose of bringing comfort and joy to refugee children.

Mihika - spliced.png

Design evaluation

The refugee toy design the whole process that went into that was quite different from the projects in the previous classes. As the new project opened up it came with new learning opportunities, which included multiple technical skills like: Tinker-cad, prototyping, Presentation skills, Giving and receiving feedback and much more.
I had never used tinker cad before, the project allowed me to gain use of a 3d model designing software. seemingly, I would say that this is the skill that I developed the most because I went from knowing nothing about it to designing a whole toy on it!
I improved this skill by completing the provided tutorials on the software itself which helped me cope
up with the basic functions..
During research I came up to a conclusion of:
When war strikes or any disaster occurs, children are the most vulnerable. Unable to protect themselves, they suffer immensely and whole childhoods can be ruined by trauma. Plus, almost 40 percent of all refugees are children.
But as they seek safety, many children sustain hope with their best loved toy. When everything seems disrupting and uncertain, a small toy can be a friendly and reliable companion, something that allows kids to project their hopes for the future and remember that peace exists.
After realizing this, it gave me an idea on how to shape the design of the toy like: it should be of a famous show (something renowned by children), it’s quite durable, it shouldn’t promote violence, etc..
The toy will help the children regain a sense of normalcy, joy, and delight, it will act as a coping mechanism for the children dealing with the traumatic situation, showing empathy, it would help the children lean into experiencing comfort, fun like all other kids despite the horrifying things they’re dealing with..
The toy design although does the work but it still could be improved.
The original design was the Marie cat toy. The original toy had a much more gentle and calm look, fitting in perfect for the need. It was changed to a much more simpler design- poke ball because several factors like time and resources. If it weren't for the conditions, the original design would have been much better, not only because of the appearance but also because the re-chosen design isn’t as famous among children and also isn’t as good as the original one

Overall during whole design cycle process it went on quite smoothly. But during part ‘creating the solution’, I had to change the original chosen design idea to something much more simpler. If during the ‘developing ideas’ part I would have looked at the time and resources, and the solution would be much better- If I had made a choice for a simple but perfect toy design, the outcome could have been much better..