During Spring Quarter, the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science’s Engineering Design and Communication program teamed up with Lekotek, a major provider of toys for children with disabilities, with the goal of designing and manufacturing adapted toys for children with various special needs.

“Our goal on paper was for students to produce working toys that could be used by kids and parents of Lekotek,” said EDC instructor Prof. Charles Yarnoff. “But we also wanted students to go through the design process with real clients and real users.”

“I think we succeeded, absolutely,” he added.

EDC, founded in 1996, is a two-quarter sequence of courses for first-year McCormick students. Students work in groups to solve an engineering design challenge for real-world clients.

In the past nine years, EDC students have teamed up with organizations including Rust-Oleum, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Parks School in Evanston, Life Fitness Company, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago as well as private individuals and small business owners.

Chicago-based Lekotek has been a repeat client of the EDC program.

“We work with Northwestern because they really put a lot of time, thought and energy into the projects,” said Deidre Omahen, Lekotek’s director of programs. “It benefits us because we can use the toys and it is cost-effective.”

This year, three teams of four McCormick engineering students were assigned the task of working with the company, from start to finish, to create three unique products: a recognition game adapted for children with cognitive disabilities, a sensory integration vest created for children with autism and a toy farmhouse adapted for children with motor skills disabilities.

The students’ time and effort on the quarter-long project extends past classroom hours.

“We spent probably 10 hours a week beyond class time,” said McCormick sophomore Lindsey Engelbert. “It starts to run your life because you want it to turn out well for the client, and it’s your grade.”

Engelbert worked on an adapted version of the game “Guess Who?” called “Who is It?” for children with cognitive difficulties.

The teams also produced a weighted vest with changeable features for autistic children and a play barnyard with people and animal figures, with appropriate sounds, for children with cerebral palsy.

At the end of the quarter, all of the hard work paid off for the Lekotek team.

“Lekotek will use all three products in their mission of helping children and their parents,” EDC instructor Prof. Tom Rochow said. “Two of the products, the adapted game and the weighted vest, were quite spectacular, going well beyond what Prof. Yarnoff or Ms. Omahen expected. They were of professional quality.”

Omahen praised the students’ attitudes toward their task.

“The students are so professional, their products were better than what some companies could have produced,” she said.

At the end of the process, Lekotek gets the final prototype of the toy as well as the proposal that talks about the design. It is left to company officials’ discretion as to what they do with the students’ final products.

Purchasing toys made specially for children with disabilities could be very expensive, so Lekotek has toy libraries around the country that lend toys to parents and children.

“These toys will be used for years and years,” Omahen said. “We tried the ‘Super Sensory Vest’ with one autistic child in one of our playgroups. His mom said, ‘Wow, I need to go out and buy one of these.'”

Engelbert felt her team’s final product was successful, but beyond that she took pride in the knowledge her class project filled an actual need.

“It is really great to know that what we created could be something that has a huge impact on their life,” she said.

Reach Virginia Vanzanten at [email protected].