Kitten Scanner Teaching Aid

red dot: best of the best
red dot award: product design 2009

Worlds of understanding – design and imagination
Children create their own worlds. They can only understand and explain things they have already experienced. Learning is a highly complex process that, according to cognitive scientists such as Humberto R. Maturana, involves exploring the world through patterns “which we create ourselves.” In this sense, the Kitten Scanner is a sophisticated teaching aid aimed at helping children to overcome fear of a computed tomography scanner by inviting them to interact and play with it. Aware that this kind of medical examination is a process unknown to children and can easily induce fear, the design of the Kitten Scanner followed an elaborate and self-explanatory approach. Representing the form and appearance of a CT scanner in miniature, the Kitten Scanner features a rounded form that looks friendly and is pleasing to the touch, as well as light effects that invite children to explore, experience and play with the device. The underlying didactic principle too is well thought out: interactive role play and storytelling are used to shed light on the different steps of such an examination in order to take the fear away from the clinical procedures and the technology unknown to children. Step by step, children learn about what a computed tomographic scan is, how it works, what it is used for, and why they would need such an examination. The children are familiarised with the procedure and then know what to expect in a real exam. The child-friendly, harmonious and didactically elaborate design turns the Kitten Scanner into an object that is exciting for children to experience, playfully reduces their fear, and teaches them something new through the act of playing – opening up new levels of understanding.