Biropodo. An educational toy for the swimming pools inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach

Considering that one of the main objectives of design is to improve the life quality among people by facilitating their daily activities and supplying solutions that satisfy their needs, this thesis work, as a summary of the Master of science in Design & Engineering, addresses the question of how the design can play an active role in children's education. Thus the challenge was to develop a product that ensured the cognitive and corporal development in children from three to six years old. In order to do that, a research about the cognitive development and the learning processes was done and a specific educational philosophy was chosen. Hence, an on-field research was developed inside the toddler nursery and preschool Clorofilla, an institution that follows the Reggio Emilia approach. This approach puts into practice the concepts and theories about the cognitive development in children developed by the constructivism. So the case of study of Clorofilla was a keypoint in the project because it helped to analyze the theoretical research from a practical perspective and it helped to understand the real needs and characteristics of the users and the context. As a result of the theoretical and practical research the main requirements and objectives of the product were achieved by the development of a toy for swimming pools. It was designed for children to compose large scale figures improving their motor abilities, representational capacities, cause and effect reasoning, and creativity, among many other skills. Satisfactorily, this project shows that design can actually play an active role in children's education, giving them tools that let them explore the world, improve their abilities and construct their knowledge while having fun.