Electronic Toy Design
The team "Minds in Motion Electronics (MiME)" consisted of three students from the Industrial Design Department at RISD and nine students from the Business, Science and Engineering Departments at Brown University.
Academically mentored by Hasbro, in this entrepreneurial toy design project, we created an innovative toy for today's children and developed a business plan for the product.
In 2009, our business plan was selected as one of the three finalists in the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition in the student track.
Problem & Objective
Image from Google
Children these days spend a lot of time playing video games at home but not enough time moving around or interacting with others.
We saw this as a great market opportunity, and as a solution to the problem, proposed an exciting toy that combines elements of video games, sports and group activities.
2008 U.S. Toy Market - Total $21.6 Billion
Theme Boards
Theme boards by Soomi Lee
Headset Design
Sketches and CAD model by Seungkyun Lee, Soomi Lee and Boram Yi
Armset Design
Sketches and CAD model by Seungkyun Lee, Soomi Lee and Boram Yi
"MiME-X" Final Concept
"MiME-X" is the name of the toy that we designed.
Appearance model by Seungkyun Lee, Soomi Lee and Boram Yi
Works-like model by Brandon Diamond and Max Lang
"MiME-X" Gameplay
Illustration by Seungkyun Lee
The gameplay of MiME-X resembles that of Laser Tag.
Each player wears a headset, which reads the player's concentration level, and an armset, which converts the headset's readings into "brain power."
The player shoots his or her "brain power" at the opponents.
The technology used here is called "Electroencephalography (EEG)," which noninvasively and objectively measures the player's concentration level.
When two players simultaneously shoot at each other, the two go into the "Tug-of-War" mode. The player who is able to concentrate harder wins the battle.
Next Step
Color variations for MiME-X
In addition to its role as a toy, the headset has the potential to be a very useful tool in everyday life.
For example, it could be used in educational settings or during workouts.
Here are some of the rough ideas that we discussed.
