Design Research Of An Intelligent Toy Based On Synesthesia Education

Children like playing games by nature. Games also play the role of "the first teachers" of people in their childhood and are crucial for the physical and mental development of children. Toys are a medium for games, the design of which is obviously important. With the progress of science and technology and the emphasis on childhood education, more and more toys begin to be endowed with intelligent and electronic features in design, and the research and development of products mainly focus on developing and innovating in educational functions.Based on the theory of Tangible Interaction and after a great deal of market investigation and research on target users, this paper presents the idea of designing an intelligent toy according to the Audio-Visual Synesthesia education of children. As hardware, the intelligent toy provides an interactive mode matching the natural physical and mental features of children for them to practice synesthesia between music and colors in an enjoyable teaching process, thus realizing the goal of this product to improve children’s imagination and creativity. In the design practice phase of this paper, the development of the intelligent toy for children named "Prism" was completed. It is an intelligent physical toy operated through a tangible user interface. While following and reading the colored lines created by children on the paper, it can translate them into regular and meaningful musical elements and give feedback immediately, so as to train the "Audio-Visual Synesthesia" of players.As for the structure of this paper, it begins with an exposition of the theoretical basis of synesthesia education and the principle and elements of tangible interaction design, a summary of the design features and existing studies of products based on synesthesia effect in market, as well as an analysis of the merits and demerits of these products. Afterwards, research is made on the target users of the product to summarize their physical and mental features and needs, and to sort out the design elements meeting their expectations, which are further analyzed and perfected before the final design proposal is made. In the practice stage of this project, the product model was successfully built, and through design verification testing, the design proposal for this project proves to be feasible.