Final project ideas

Before spring break, we visited some children and observed them playing in their classrooms and interacting with each other and the teachers. 

Our final project is to design a project that will enhance the children and teachers' experience in the classroom. 

I saw a few things that may be potential for my final project. 

One, the bathroom sinks: one of the teachers said that the children sometimes forget to wash their hands after using the bathroom. I think that a possible project would be to design some kind of feedback and control so that if a child doesn't wash his/her hands after using the bathroom, there will be some kind of flashing of lights or other reminder for him/her to wash hands. 

Two, the children seem to have trouble remaining seated on their carpet squares. Perhaps if the child starts to get up off the carpet square, or is sitting on the edge of it, the carpet square could vibrate or make a sound to remind the child to sit down. Some kind of pressure sensor would have to be built into the mats. 

And three, the children easily spill water or sand from out of the tubs. There needs to be some kind of reminder for them to clean up the water or sand when there is a large spill. Maybe there could be a sensor on the legs of the table that detect spills. And, if there is a spill, a short song could be played that reminds the children to clean up the mess.

All of these ideas involve some kind of visual or auditory simulation to remind the children to do or to not do something. It is also important to keep in mind that whatever the simulation is, it cannot over simulate the children. We don't want to encourage them do things on purpose to make the lights go off or make the song play.