The Problem

Many of the interactions between 6-12 year old children with Down Syndrome and their family are limited and not always filled with fun. After doing more thorough research, we found 4 very typical characteristics of children with Down Syndrome:

  • Sociable: They desire and actively attempt to interact with people around them.
  • Capacity for full emotional range: They can recognize and manage emotions rather well.
  • Excellent Visual Learning Abilities: Learning by imitation, gestures and sign language are important in their developing years.
  • Enjoy games and watching videos: They love to immerse themselves in games and videos as much as anyone else.
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    Primarily, the challenges they face can be summarized by the chart below:

    Figure: Common challenges of children with Down Syndrome.

    What we did

    We set out to build a mixed reality mulit-player game using custom designed wooden blocks that can be put together in different combinations to carry out different tasks in a game on a screen. The goal of this project is to allow children with Down Syndrome to have an avenue where they can share joyous moments with their siblings, family and friends.

    How it works

    The wooden blocks that we built were carefully painted with unique colours. This is so that our in-game machine learning model can identify the position of the different blocks in space. Depending on how the different blocks are brought together, the corresponding in-game object can change. Our machine learning system is able to identify orientation and position of the blocks in real space, making it an addictive game for almost anyone.

    Video: A demonstration of how the game works.