Design of a Health Monitoring Toy for Children

Especially for young children measuring their physiologicalparameters to assess their health can be stressful, even whenconducted at home by their parents. Therefore we present aconcept that can relieve some of the anxiety correlated withan examination and implemented it in a test setup we call"MediCubes" to investigate how this approach is received.In this system cube shaped tangible objects are fitted withnoninvasive sensors measuring pulse, temperature, bloodoxygen saturation and lung capacity while interacting withthem. Incorporation in a storytelling game allows guiding achild through a series of unperceived physiologicalmeasurements as an enjoyable experience. The acquireddata is stored on a smartphone and can be reviewed byparents or doctors.In this paper the design process and the developed hardandsoftware are presented. Furthermore we report on ausability study with 8 children and 12 adults indicating highacceptance and enjoyment of the system. These results aswell as our "lessons learned" could have implications onthe future development of home health monitoring toys.