KitKast
Cast Away Your Limitations
KitKast is a modular arm cast that allows children to take greater ownership of and come to terms with their physical injuries by removing the associated stigma and limitations. Modularity promotes individual customization and extended capabilities during a period when capabilities and physical movement are inherently limited. Modules are presented in kits that either equip children with new methods of play and draw greater social interactivity or mitigate impatience and irritation derived from the injury. In essence, KitKast empowers children who feel incapacitated while questioning the state of being incapacitated itself.
Critical Making, UC Berkeley Graduate Course
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Product Gallery
The Process
Design Research
When speaking with children who recently wore casts, they emphasized the pervasive limitations imposed by a wearing cast: they can’t go swimming, play sports, or play musical instruments. The frustration of limited personal ability seemed coupled with frustration at the isolation imposed by a cast. That is, those activities precluded by a cast are not only for personal gratification but also, perhaps even more so, for social interaction and connection. These children also mentioned particular activities they could still do, namely building with LEGOs, and were excited by the idea of incorporating such building activities into their casts.
From this feedback, we developed three design goals to create a cast that:
-
Is physically comfortable,
-
Fosters social interaction, and
-
Offers novel capabilities that children don’t have with healthy arms.
Brainstorming and Ideation
After determining the cast's needs, we brainstormed methods of incorporating those needs through creative designs and features. We based our ultimate design around modularity, to provide the child with opportunities for creativity and customization. We then aimed to build one type of module for each of the three critical components to our final design:
-
Enable Personal Aesthetic Customization
-
Enhance Capabilities and Promote Social Interactivity
-
Ameliorate Impatience and Burden of Cast
Function 1: Enable Personal Aesthetic Customization
​
Concern: Wearing the same cast every day can be a dull experience.
Representative module: Fabric-covered swatch modules allow for flexibility in cast color choices. Providing users with the ability to swap out colors as frequently as they’d like gives them control over the appearance of their cast, empowering them and lessening any self-consciousness they may have about their casts and injuries.
Function 2: Enhance Capabilities and Promote Social Interactivity
​
Concern: Wearing a cast is limiting and isolating.
Representative module: A bubble blower module extends abilities for play and draws other people to the user. By associating the injury with a novel capability, modules of this type help break the negative association users may have with their limitations.
Function 3: Ameliorate Impatience and Burden of Cast
​
Concern: Wearing a cast constantly can be an irritating and discouraging experience.
Representative module: An LED healing timer module shows progress and makes the countdown to full recovery more fun. Although casts may be viewed as limiting to users, KitKast can remind them that it is only temporarily imposed upon the body in order to restore it. In this way, KitKast shows children the value of patience and the power of time to heal.
Prototyping
KitKast Base
The cast consisted of multiple primary pieces divided in two types – the shell and the modules. We designed the shell such that it assembles in three separate pieces, and the modules as inserts that fasten magnetically and sit flush with the shell. The main fabrication techniques used were 3D printing and laser cutting.
We sanded and painted each of the surfaces to create a universal color scheme. Additionally, some of the modules were wrapped in fabric to create the color swatches for customization.
Bubble Blowing Module Fabrication
Our main module for this prototype was a custom-made bubble blower that can sit in the module inserts on the cast. To do so, our first step was to deconstruct existing bubble blower mechanisms and understand the circuitry, mechanical considerations, and reimagine its assembly.
We then designed the enclosure and a new mechanism to actuate the bubble blower.
The new mechanism functions by means of a switch soldered to a servo motor that activates the pump and blower mechanism. This switch press was then mechanically linked to a lever mechanism that raises and lowers the bubble film generator. The bubble film generator is a bar that sweeps across the mouth of the blower to generate a soap film. A critical challenge was having the film generator be close enough to the mouth to generate the film, but far enough such that the friction wouldn’t impede the mechanism.
Video clip demonstrating the bubble blower assembly.
The Final Design
Video