Medicine is a career that usually involves a deep vocation of service, and many doctors feel ‘the call’ very early in life. Some doctors may have a parent who is doctor, or maybe they have someone close to them who works in healthcare, they have a relative who is sick and they want to help, or maybe they watched doctors in a tv show; the point is, it’s very healthy to explore this while being kid. Toys can be very influential in a child’s life. Dr. Nicola Pitchford said “The toys that children gravitate towards help promote the skills they may draw on in their future careers”. This statement was further confirmed by Lego when they did a series of polls in the UK during 1999 and 2000 that showed that ‘99% of the architects played with Lego during their childhood’, and nurses favored dolls, while IT workers reached for computer games. This is interesting information about the influence of toys in the future of our children lives.
Having heard this, maybe it’s also interesting to consider the possibility of having a toy that relates closely to medicine. Seedling, a company founded in New Zealand in 2007, has launched an adorable teddy bear called Parker to the market, but, make no mistake – this is no traditional teddy bear. Although it looks like one, it doesn’t use batteries, it doesn’t link to Wi-Fi, and it doesn’t have an integrated camera. Only by using a smartphone or tablet using Parker will your kid be able to play doctor in a very interesting way, using Augmented Reality.
Parker includes a thermometer, a stethoscope, an X-ray frame, a spoon, and a medicine bottle; that way your child (or you) can take Parker’s temperature, auscultate him, see parker’s bones, or give him medicine, which encompasses most of what is done during a medical consult. Parker is a STEAM toy. STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. Each ailment Parker endures can be solved in a certain way, stimulating the problem-solving logic and by doing this more Augmented Reality features will be activated, releasing more amazing experiences for users to enjoy. Take a look at how Parker works in the video below:
The premise is very simple, very intuitive and very interesting. This reimagined teddy bear experience, brings new and interesting scenarios for them to explore along with the whole family. At ARinMed, we believe that this is a fresh and interesting idea, and it will bring one of the first Augmented Reality experiences for our children in a non-violent, exciting way. We can only imagine how this approach of merging traditional toy experiences with Augmented Reality technologies could improve child development in the near future. Kudos to the team at Seedling, we are more than interested to find out more proposals like this soon!
What do you think of Parker? Please let us know in the comments section.
Source: Seedling
