Santa’s workshop returned to Marquette this November as part of an annual effort to adapt accessible toys for children and provide hands-on learning for students eager to serve.
The Opus College of Engineering’s Orthopaedic & Rehabilitation Center (OREC) and Penfield Children’s Center hosted two “build days” this month to support Inclusive Play: Toys for All, a collaboration between Marquette, Penfield Children’s Center and Kohl’s Building Blocks to provide adapted toys to children with varying abilities in the Milwaukee area.
These build days bring together engineering students, occupational therapy students, local high school students and community volunteers to make electrical modifications to over 240 toys, all to be given to families and therapists at no charge. This year’s efforts raised the all-time toy total to 640 and counting.
The value of an adapted toy
Toys help children learn through play, especially to explore early communication concepts like cause and effect. Press a toy’s button and spark a reaction – sounds, lights, motion, bubbles and more. For many children with varying abilities, engagement with a toy could be their first opportunity to communicate and a key developmental tool for families and therapists.
But with many off-the-shelf toys, the buttons to unlock this reaction can be small and difficult-to-press, especially for children with developmental delays or limited dexterity.
That is where simple electrical modifications become a gamechanger. By reworking a toy’s electronics to allow for an added therapy switch, almost any toy can become more accessible for play.
Similarly adapted toys are sold online by specialty retailers but are often marked up at a price that is inaccessible to families. Through the Inclusive Play: Toys for All project, toys are adapted in bulk and then donated at no cost to families.
“These toys often help children make a new sound, new movement, or light up in ways that even their own families have not seen,” says Vladimir Bjelic, a speech language pathologist at Penfield Children’s Center who helps lead the effort. “We are bringing out much needed laughs and smiles for these families while also helping display a child’s development and potential.”
The value of building with community
When scaling this initiative, collaborators at Marquette and Penfield knew that more helpers would mean more toys, and that Milwaukee is full of groups ready to help.
“We realized that there are plenty of talented, enthusiastic groups in our own communities that could help increase our toy production, and that we could also use the project to inspire and educate volunteers,” says Molly Erickson, an OREC research engineer at Marquette who leads the technical side of Inclusive Play and organizes the build days. “The high school students, engineering students, and OT students all bring unique talents and perspectives to the build days, and they each walk away with a new experience to help their own development.”
For the local high school students, the build days provide hands-on experience with electrical modifications and a variety of tools, as well as experience collaborating with a team to serve communities. Many of the high school volunteers came from local FIRST Robotics teams who were eager for extra training and fun before their robotics competition seasons begin. Participating high schools included Rufus King International High School, Bradley Tech, Ronald Reagan High School, Oak Creek High School, Brookfield Central High School, Brookfield East High School and Nicolet High School.
Meanwhile, graduate students studying occupational therapy found an opportunity to engage with adaptive technology that they may use and advocate for in their future careers.
These students helped expand the total number of toys adapted while bringing a new perspective to each team by bridging the gap between the technology and the user.
And for engineering students, the build days offered more hands-on experience to supplement their course work and another opportunity to serve the community. Working alongside OT students also provided experience in interdisciplinary collaboration and communication that they will find in their engineering professions. In addition to many Marquette engineering students, this year’s build day also included a handful of students from Concordia University Wisconsin who have been 3D printing new therapy switches to support the effort.
With the 2024 build days complete, each toy will now be tested and reviewed by Erickson and then given to Penfield Children’s Center to use in therapy sessions and to distribute to families in need at no cost. Additional build days will be scheduled as the program expands to serve more children and families.
