Developing a NASA-inspired toy: TENSOS

I worked with a multi-disciplinary team of engineering and business students to explore human-centered design opportunities in developing a toy tensegrity to be used for educational outreach and to foster interest in STEM fields. I designed all product visuals, which included the branding, packaging, and instructional materials.

This product was inspired by NASA's Super Ball Bot research and development, and at the end of the semester, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet with and present our final product to members of the NASA team!

Note: we changed the product name to TENSOS after we finished our final prototype packaging, which is why it says Tensegrity Kit instead of TENSOS.

What is tensegrity?

Put simply, a tensegrity is a 3-dimensional structure consisting of rigid members that don't touch and are suspended by a web of cords under tension. A tensegrity structure has a dynamic of basically being stretched apart and pulled together at the same time!

NASA is exploring tensegrity concepts to build the next generation of planetary rovers. This is because tensegrity structures can flexibly move and respond to changes in surrounding, which could allow for more resilient and reliable spacecrafts for planetary landing and exploration.

Our mission: Inspire kids to explore STEM

We set out to provide K-8 school children an affordable and engaging tensegrity toy that allows them to explore basic scientific concepts and learn about current NASA research and how it is being applied to explore the galaxy. We wanted our product to help nurture a fascination for science in kids at an early age so that they pursue STEM related careers in the future.

The product development journey

As this was for a product development class, we covered the entire product development lifecycle. We went into it knowing that we had to design with two different demographics in mind: our target customers (the parents and teachers purchasing our product), and our end users (children). It was a special challenge tackling this dual nature to create a product that would appeal to parents but also keep kids engaged.

We started off by determining customer and user needs through interviews with educators, parents and their kids. Diving into their heads to figure out what they think, feel, and look for in a good toy helped us shape and frame our efforts for the project. We also analyzed competing products and researched related products available in the market.

After our research efforts, we brainstormed over 120 ideas for our product! These were eventually narrowed down to three top concepts. We conducted business analyses and heavily tested our top designs with potential customers and users, iterating and honing our prototypes based on feedback. After aggregating comments and suggestions, the team decided to merge all three concepts into one overarching design: a tensegrity building kit.

An in-depth analysis detailing our entire process can be found here.

Diversity makes for a great team

The team collectively worked on building the final prototype and business plan. Luckily, we had team members from a variety of backgrounds including mechanical engineering, business, design, and cognitive science, so everyone's skills and expertise came into play when executing the final product.

I was primarily responsible for designing all product visuals, which included the brand identity, packaging, and instruction manual. I wanted my designs to be fun, exciting and to work across various mediums (print on paper versus laser cut on wood). It was especially exciting crafting the packaging because it was my first time working with laser cutters and had to design with laser cutter restrictions in mind. Presenting the complex scientific and instructional information in a way that young kids would be able to easily understand and remain engaged with in the instruction manual was another challenging design task.

The final product

TENSOS is a fun, affordable, and interactive toy building kit for K-8 children that teaches about tensegrity, NASA, and how to build your own tensegrity toy. TENSOS generates interest in STEM fields through building and playing.

The TENSOS building kit comes with all the materials needed to build your own tensegrity model and an instruction manual complete with colorful and clean visuals, kid-friendly instructions on how to assemble various tensegrity models, and background information to educate users on tensegrity concepts and how NASA is utilizing tensegrity for space exploration.

TENSOS also creates a community for children to expand their building and science knowledge with other excited kids. We have a website that acts like a forum where children can share their designs with others around the world. There, kids can also find supplementary step-by-step video instructions for the various tensegrity models that are covered in the instruction manual.

At the end of the semester, our team pitched the product to campus community members, faculty, and industry judges in a final tradeshow.

Created by: Samuel Cappoli, Shannon Chu, Akhil Devarakonda, Jimmy Huang, Daniella Seim, Evan Winger