The need for a buddy

Not all children develop at the same pace. Some children are lacking behind in their socio-emotional development compared to their peers, due to various reasons: mental disorders, their domestic environment, or just unfortunate circumstances. Socio-emotional skills are important when interacting with other people for the rest of their lives, and start developing from a young age. Children with less well-developed sociol skills are more vulnerable to bullying, and are more likely to lack behind in other skill fields as well. 

To support expressing social needs and values, Maatje was developed. The idea was to enable vulnerable children from 5-8 years old to create a personal manifestation of their social needs, which they can customize and take home. The activity of creating this buddy is valuable both for the child, as well as their mentor: it can give insight in social needs that the child is not able to express in words. 

Before advancing to a full product development stage, the concept of tinkering a social buddy was tested at a carefarm, using scrap material and other unused props. This co-creation session turned out to be a success, and in order to create a more mature product, the cardboard boxes were developed. 

A second co-creation session would indicate that the Maatje toolkit is indeed a fun experience, that allows children to build their own buddy. Further research should indicate if children experience long-term value of their buddy and whether this positively influences their socio-emotional development.

Prototyping

The Maatje toolkit has been developed using lasercutting and 3D printing. These ‘rapid prototyping’ techniques allowed for little time between idea and realisation, leading to quick iteration cycles. This way, small adaptations could be made and printed again, optimizing towards an ideal design. Cardboard turned out to be a versatile material, although forming organic shapes proved to be difficult. 

Co-creation

The power of working together to solve a problem.

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