Design and Manufacturing of Remote Control for Children Viewing Using Children Inspiration

The recruitment of children’s imagination in the development of new product design provides an interesting source of new ideas for product development, including for products for children. This study is related to the design and manufacture of a prototype for a remote control that controls television viewing content for children, to protect them from inappropriate content, control their viewing time and keep them at a safe distance from the television screen. For security reasons this remote control is activated by a fingerprint recognition system. Research was carried out to comprehend children’s behaviour and their television viewing habits, this was instrumental in the development of design ideas. In particular the design was influenced by input from parents and children and the relationship between the functionality and the use of the remote control, producing a finger-shaped design inspired by the fingerprint recognition and the action of pointing the device at the television. The project considered 4D elements: such as interface design, mood lighting and sounds and 3D representations using Solid Works were produced showing various colour schemes. Prototype models were produced using SLA (stereolithography) and FDM (fused deposit modelling) techniques, allowing for ergonomic testing and visualisation.