My University Project! Any suggestions would be fantastic!

[TomSudlow]

Hello there,

Im a second year student and im studying a product design degree in Sheffield. For my current project ive been given the task to design a product (electrical) for parents to use in the kitchen with their children (under 16). Its purpose is to encourage cooking with parents and to promote healthy eating and 'real' food. I thought I would post on here because lets agree who is better to talk to than the people im designing for, parents. Any suggestions (and i mean any!!!) would be super helpful.

thanks in advance
tom

Hello Tom, welcome.
That is quite a tall order.
An electrical product assumes the child is over a certain age and the world is full of electrical products for the kitchen that are not aimed at children but can quite easily be used by them. SO any decent product has probably been invented already.

Can anyone else help?

Yeah well the breif that i have been given states that the product should only be used when an adult is supervising the child. Are you a parent yourself? If so so you try to cook with your kids?

Im not sure really ive posted on a couple of sites for feedback and i might try and get down to some focus groups. Can you think of anything else i could pursue?

yes I have three kids and have cooked with them since they were all tiny. I have always just used normal electrical kitchen gadgets with them ( food mixer, liquidiser,toaster ) under supervision since they were very young. I really cannot think of any sort of appliance that does not already exist that needs inventing, and all existing appliances can be used by children under supervision.

My daughter (10) often bakes cakes and simple meals completely unsupervised.

Does it have to be an electrical appliance?

I saw a great thing at a local fete once - a stationary bike had been "wired" up ( no electricity involved ) to an old blender. Children were invited to pedal on the bike which caused the blender blades to rotate and chop up fruit to make smoothies. Not exactly adaptable for domestic use though

How about redesigning something already available - thinking some sort of blender/food chopper which helps prepare fresh food but child safe?

Or some sort of item to cut food (ie veg) when preparing which can be used by a child.

The line I'm going down is a child safe version of what already exists.

Something that stirs food cooking in pans, well that makes child stirring actually effective.

Um, a grater - I don't know if you get electric heaters already?

Most electric products in the kitchen are quite safe to use for children. Food processors don't run without the lid being on for example. However, liquidiser or a hand blender don't have such a feature. Use the hand blender quite a bit for making soups etc which the children can do - just tell them to keep the bottom blade in the pan - mostly to avoid any mess. Possibly there is a safety function that could be add - some sort of mesh guard perhaps?

TBH - I'm not sure we need any more electrical gadgets in the kitchen!!

OK, why don't we approach it from another angle for Tom. Let's take the age range down a bit, by 15 they're pretty capable with most things. Let's take it down to 8. What are the jobs you don't get your child to do on their own, either because it's not safe, or because they'll make a hash of it. Sieving, for example? Or something to help them on the tidying up front!! We are all so used to making it work, overcoming limitations, that we've maybe lost sight of what the limitations might be.

Tom - if you could find a way to make a tumble drier pair up all the socks after drying that would be a product worth getting!! PS went to Sheffield too - great City to be in.

Still struggling to think of any kitchen equipment.

If children make a hash of it - so what - it's how they learn! My 8 year old uses the big kitchen knife - if you show them how to chop correctly.

Or, how about someething like a pot with integrated heat so there's no danger of having the child standing at the cooker - esp if you've got other rings on, with boiling water - and the pan moving and exposing the ring. Come on, think of what's not good/easy when they're small. Melt chocolate easily without a bain marie. (There's probably something that does that already).

I agree with you, but Tom needs to do this project, he's not trying to please us. He has been given a remit and somehow has to come up with an idea, I don't think it matters whether we'd use it or not. He's showing initiative coming on here to ask us, and I don't think we're ever going to find life changers for him, but let's try to give him a hand, with the benefit of our experience.

Many of these products already exist - you can get electric sauce stirrers, blenders that can cook soup all in one - so if he came up with this is it just a copy? Does it need to be original or an improvement of something existing?

Also, look at the remit a bit closer... this is to encourage people to cook with their children. This is probably not us. We probably don't need that encouragement or we wouldn't have clicked through to this post or bothered replying. This is to encourage people who wouldn't do it otherwise - perhaps because of the mess - not everyone will take the approach that it's part of the learning process.
Come on Tom, assert yourself! You'll get there!

How about a spoon with a built in oven glove / hand guard bit. I know it's not electric, but it would be good for kids to stir pans with.

Or a kiddy size espresso machine, so they can bring me a decent coffee. Ok, I was joking about that.

Or something like a pasta machine that cuts up different shapes of biscuits? So you roll the dough through and it comes out cut up. That would be fun.

There's been such a profusion of task specific devices over the last couple of years though, it's a bit depressing. Things like cup cake makers, lolly makers, popcorn makers. It would be nice to see something multi purpose and ideally non electronic. But if that's the brief, so be it.

An electric salad spinner. Kids love salad spinners.

A tin opener that put a rubber strip over the sharp edge as you cut it off? That would be useful for the elderly and people with impairments too.

how about a soup maker (yes I know these exist already - I want one!) since lots of children like soup, good way of eating veg easily - but in a more child friendly design - i.e. low and wide rather than tall and narrow so the child could reach it more easily; blades that definitely didn't go round/ heat element that didn't warm til the top is firmly on. In a material that's a bit more touch friendly and colourful than your normal soup making devices.

something that makes things children love to eat but produces them in a much more healthy way. icecream maker - the good electrical ones are very expensive. Ingredient list of shop bought icecream is awful. if you could produce a result that had much less cream in, or used a low fat version or maybe no cream at all and much more fruit.

How about thinking around knives?

My kids adore helping with the chopping. They can easily stir, sift, roll etc with bog standard spoons, and rolling pins and so on. My elder child is coming up for 5 and for a few months has been ok closely supervised with a small chopping knife but does need constant reminders to keep his fingers out of the way. The younger one is almost 3 and I can't trust her with a chopping knife yet but she gets really annoyed using a table knife because it doesn't chop well enough. So how about some sort of knife guard? Perhaps silicone to easily slip over a normal knife with a hilt to stop little hands slipping down the handle to hold the blade by accident, make it easy to grip for little hands. If you could also do something they can use in their other hand for holding the food with a raised edge so they can't chop too close to their fingers then I bet you'd sell a million of them in the Lakeland Catalogue.

Have you had a little look in the Lakeland catalogue by the way? THey sell a range off the back of the Cbeebies show "I Can Cook" which is all aimed at children cooking. THe TV show might be worth a watch too to get an idea of the sort of things children can do given the right materials and guidance.

ooh, how about something that would make dried fruit strips. I think it's called 'fruit leather'. Would probably need to be a heated roller type thing.

Jees, I need to get on with my own work.

Ooops ignore me, I missed the electrical part.

I like whimsicalname's idea. You can already get something like it, think its in Lakeland, and is a dessicator. But you could design it to be kiddy friendly (so smaller than an adult dessicator, nice designs on the outside, good 'cookbook' to accompany). Maybe even have additional functions like a melted chocolate dip place for making some of the dried fruit 'sweeties' a bit more interesting. In Jamie Oliver's 2nd or 3 rd cookbook (Return of the Naked Chef?) he has a section on kiddy cooking and making dried fruit that tastes basically like fruit gums. Might be worth checking out.

Or how about a cheese toasty machine that would appeal to children?

Or a cruditie plate that has a space for a dip in the middle that makes sounds when you dip your carrot stick into the dip - maybe you could programme the sections so that one was for carrots? (I once had a bowl in the shape of a cow that came with a spoon for weaning - when you dipped the spoon into the bowl the bowl mooed - so it encourages self-feeding).

Or something to enable them/their family to tot up their 5 a day - an electronic magnetic fridge thing where you can enter in what you've had - not cooking though, but encouraging healthy eating?

dreamingofsun the £39 lakeland ice cream maker pretty much does that. You can make ice cream with plain yoghurt, fruit and sugar (can also use fructose to make it diabetic friendly which is an issue for us) and nowt else. Makes absolutely bloody gorgeous ice-cream.

(sorry, that doesn't help the project, but might help dreamingofsun!)

sticky - i really fancied one of those plug in ones...but since i can't afford it i appreciate the feedback on the lakeland one. just need my allotment so i have loads of fruit.

You know what would really help?

(And you should patent the idea and pay me a fortune because THIS my friend, will be a bestseller)

A large teflon non stick stockpot.
With a lid.
The lid has two plastic "whips" with a flat bottom attached, and they will rotate in an even pattern while cooking, to prevent burning.

Especially usefull when heating up large quantities of milk, for cooking a rice pudding, or porridge on the stove.

That's why you have children to do all the boring stirring bits for you!

... and why the op is asking for safe electric options!

I would not let my kids lose on a pot with 3 liters of boiling milk, though....

Wow guys GREAT feeback!!!

I didnt expect such an enthusiastic response. I completely agree with what you are all saying about the fact that most of the 'inconveniences' that could be solved with an appliance have been covered. This resulting in my design dilemma.

I also agree with the idea about taking an existing idea/product and altering it so its interesting for kids. So this is the road that ive been going down this week:
I wanted to steer clear of the stereotypical kids products with their bright plastic finishes etc. So i decided to pursue a more interactive design. Maybe incorporating a touch screen with recipes loaded onto the blender for smoothies, soups, yogurts etc. Also I want to add an educational aspect to the product. So if the youngster clicks an image of a piece of fruit of veg there is a brief explanation as to what it is and where its from etc. Allowing the child to build knowledge of the ingredients. Also the parent along with their child could also create recipes and save them to the blender as it will be compatible with computers and some simple software would be provided.

Some more feedback would be fantastic!

Too much tech? Or beneficial for the growth of food knowledge?

Thanks again for all your feedback! super helpful

Tom