The Corn Popper
In this project, I reverse engineered the classic Fisher Price Corn Popper and examined all aspects of the product and marketing. Then I redesigned the toy to be more inclusive for children with disabilities.
For the first part of the project, I took apart the Corn Popper to examine the inner workings and popping mechanisms. While doing this, I also created a bill of materials and technical sketches of the popping mechanism. Hidden under babyproofing is the bent axle, yellow popper, spring, and stabilizer rod. The axle catches on the bottom of the yellow popper pulling it down and compressing the spring. When the axle continues rotating, the popper is released and forced upwards making the balls pop.
After I figured out how the popper worked, I realized that this toy is not accessible for children with sound sensitivities such as kids with autism. So, I created a new toy similar to the popper but completely silent to not startle kids with sound sensitivities. I also know that autistic kids tend to enjoy patterns so I envisioned a pegboard of flashing lights that can be rearranged into different patterns to capture their attention for longer periods of time and to allow for creativity.
Additionally, I analyzed the rhetoric in the corn popper packaging, and I wrote new advertising for my modified popper toy. Lastly, I created a sustainability assessment using CES EduPack of the current corn popper.
Big Takeaways
Overall, I learned many key skills in this first project:
-
What the reverse engineering process is
-
How to create a bill of materials
-
How to create detailed technical sketches
-
How to use CES EduPack to check environmental impact