Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Labs: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

Overview

Toy Product Design is a MIT Public Service Center learning design course offered in the Spring semester. This course is an introduction to the product design process with a focus on designing for play and entertainment. At the end of the course, students present their toy products at the Playsentations to toy designers, engineers, elementary school children and the MIT community.

In this course, students work in small teams of 5-6 members to design and prototype new toys. Students work closely with a local sponsor and experienced mentors on a themed toy design project. Students will be introduced to the product development process, including: determining customer needs; brainstorming; estimation; sketching; sketch modeling; concept development; design aesthetics; detailed design; prototyping; and written, visual, and oral communication.

For additional information about this course, see the 2.00B Web site .

Almost Required Readings

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York, NY: Harper Paperbacks, 1994. ISBN: 9780060976255.

Norman, Donald. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Every Day Things. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2005. ISBN: 9780465051366.

Ulrich, Karl T., and Steven D. Eppinger. Product Design and Development. 3rd ed. Boston, Mass: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2003. ISBN: 9780072471465.

Suggested Readings

Ashby, Michael, and Kara Johnson. Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design. Boston, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002. ISBN: 9780750655545.

Sutton-Smith, Brian. Toys as Culture. New York, NY: Gardner Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780898761054.

Bee, Helen L., and Denise Roberts Boyd. The Developing Child. 10th ed. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2003. ISBN: 9780205340989.

Instructors

There will be one lab instructor and one mentor assigned to each lab section. Lab instructors are professors or graduate students that have a strong background in product design. Mentors are undergraduates who have previously taken Toy Product Design and have shown great interest and skill in the subject.

Grading

Individual lab instructors assign the grades for all students in their section. Instructors collaborate to ensure that there is equitable grading between lab sections. Half of the total grade is based on individual work and the other half is based on teamwork. Class and lab participation grades are based on both attendance and quality of in-class activity.

Calendar

The calendar below provides information on the course's lecture (L) and lab (Lab) sessions.