Physi

What?

Designing a playful add-on for data-enabled children’s physio therapy M1.2 Design Project Technology & Realization, Math, Data & Computing, User & Society October 2023 - January 2024 Excellent (9.0) What? Growing up, children can face various problems with their gross motor skill development, whether it is due to musculoskeletal dysfunctions, neurological conditions or injuries (Chappell & Williams, 2002; Spring Forward Family Centre, n.d.). Any of these issues can all be reasons for a child to need to go to a physical therapist. Pediatric physical therapists, however, often use traditional multipurpose tools that lack playfulness. On the other hand, there are also playful physiotherapy tools that do have this playfulness, but then again lack the multi-purposeness. Therefore, a playful add-on has been developed for the classical BOSU ball for training balance. This add-on facilitates various games through LED and sound interactions. Another problem that PPTs face, is that progress assessment happens through personal observations. This means that their assessment is mostly based on qualitative data. Through the collection of data over the balance and division of pressure over the feet, we aim to provide a more accurate assessment. This data is transferred to an app tailored to the physiotherapist’s administrative needs. The app enables quick and accurate assessments, easy communication to colleagues and parents and through the integrated AI that proposes suggestions for reporting, they will get relief from time-consuming administrative work.

What were my main takeaways?

• I learned have more faith in making decisions instead of staying too long in the conceptual phase. In the end, it was the hands-on approach that I like so much that was my main motivator in this project.

• I learnt to respect my energetic character that was able to flourish in a dynamic environment that favoured open and honest communcation as was not worried about being critical about each other’s work and opinions.