Archived Projects
KidsTeam UW
KidsTeam at the University of Washington works with kids aged 7-11 years old. KidsTeamUW meets every Tuesday and Thursday during the school year, and holds a week-long session during the summer. Each week KidsTeam will partner with different corporations and organizations, and students and faculty will hold their own research sessions with KidsTeam.
Team Hamsters with GBH, 2023 - 2026 Partnership with GBH (Boston public media producer and PBS affiliate well-known for children's media) KidsTeam UW and GBH's Team Hamster worked together to design three peer-to-peer engineering games. After two years and 40+ co-design sessions, you can play Awesome Obstacles, Tower Builders, and Key Quest on the PBS Kids website.
Telepresence Robots and Children, 2020 - 2023 Led by Casey Hunt, Kaiwen Sun A multi-institution (University of Washington, University of Maryland, University of Colorado, Pratt Institute, and University of Michigan) collaborative codesign study with children (8-12) to understand how telepresence robot systems shape participatory design in online and hybrid contexts.
Money and Finances for Children, 2020 - 2023 Led by Jason Yip We ideated, evaluated, and designed technologies for children's finances.
MHCI+D & HCDE, 2019-2022 Partnership with Jon Froelich and Michael Smith The students in MHCID brought in different projects mostly environmental related and asked questions on what the children thought about their projects. The children also gave different ideas in improving the projects.
Creepy Technology, 2018-Present Led by Jason Yip and Alexis Hiniker in partnership with Kiley Sobel, Xin Gao, Allison Hishikawa, Laura Meng, Alexis Lim, Justin Park, and Romaine Ofiana. Creepy is a word that lots of kids use to describe technology, but what does it really mean? And, why do kids describe technology as creepy? In these KidsTeam sessions we work together with the children to discover what creepy means for technology and kids.
Children and Museums, 2017-2018 Partnership with MOHAI (Museum of History and Industry) MOHAI brought in different learning activities to ask children if they made sense and how to improve learning activities for the children visiting the museum.
Earth Games, 2017-2020 Partnership with Dargan Frierson KidsTeam partners with Dargan to work on mobile games related to environmental sustainability. These games help bring awareness to youth about challenges in our environment and how their actions can have an impact on the health of our ecosystem.
Children and Health, 2016-Present In partnership with Laura Pina, Shwetak Patel,  and Jimi Huh. Projects are focused on children and health around the topics of concussions, sleep, Spiro, eye tracking, and sun protection.
Nature Collection, 2016-2018 Partnership with Katie Davis and Josh Lawler The Nature Collection app seeks to engage children ages 7-12 in exploration of the natural world. It allows children to take pictures, curate, and identify what they have find. In KidsTeam UW, the children helped the researcher on gathering design ideas for the features of the app.
Mario Maker & VR, 2015-2018 Partnership with Foundry 10 Foundry 10 is a non-profit organization which takes a philanthropic approach in understanding how people learn.Through our collaborative research, programs and projects, the organization address questions outside of traditional educational structures. Foundry 10 brought VR and Mario Maker in KidsTeam to understand how these technologies could be used to enhance learning.
Microbits, 2016-2017 Partnership with Microsoft The technology brought by Microsoft was Microbits. Microbit is a small programmable computer. In the KidsTeam session, the technique of sticky notes were used to evaluate the technology by writing the likes, dislike and design ideas. The most interesting part from the design session was the children helped the adults improve the music feature interface.
Children and New Users Interfaces, 2015-Present Partnership with Alexis Hiniker, Lisa Anthony, Maya Cakmak, and Julie Kientz Projects are focused around interactions involving voice activation and other other new user experiences. Topics like how children interact with an Alexa device are explored.
Seattle Public Library, 2015-Present Partnership with Seattle Public Library (SPL) SPL was interested in implementing different technology for youth programming. These were the different technology: FINCH robots, Little Bits, Tale Blazer, Mario Maker, E-textile. In KidsTeam UW the children co-designed with the librarian and the university students to design fun activities for youth programming.
Block Studio, 2015-2020 Partnership with Rahul Banerjee Block studio is one of the longest partner we had in KidsTeam UW. Block Studio is a program where children can code and design to create games or stories. In KidsTeam UW, the children helped the interface to the logistics of Block Studio and also ideas for tutorials.
KidsTeam Libraries
KidsTeam Libraries was created as a way to explore technology usage in the library space and give kids in different communities the opportunity to be design partners. The group started working mainly at Seattle Public Library branches and has now expanded to include rural libraries in locations like Whitman and Stevens county. Technology projects vary by year and the specific learning goals of each library.
Arduino Circuit Boards, 2018-2019 Seattle Public Library Columbia, Greenwood, and Rainier Branches Fall of 2018 The class ‘Participatory Design in Libraries’ was taught again this time in two locations: Columbia and Greenwood branch of SPL and worked with Arduino. Winter of 2019 a capstone group has started a new KidsTeam SPL at the Rainier Branch. The team will continue to work with Arduino based on the work from Columbia and Greenwood branch.
3D Printing Exploration, 2018 Seattle Public Library Columbia and Greenwood Branches Winter to Spring of 2017 A capstone group of students who were in ‘PD and Libraries’ class continued to lead a KidsTeam SPL in Columbia Branch and worked with the 3D printer.Fall of 2018 The class ‘Participatory Design in Libraries’ was taught again this time in two locations: Columbia and Greenwood branch of SPL and worked with Arduino.
Video Games and Storytime, 2017 Seattle Public Library Columbia Branch Fall of 2017 A class taught by Jason Yip ‘Participatory Design in Libraries’ worked with Seattle Public Library- Columbia Branch to do a KidsTeam SPL which the goal was to understand how children want to interact with Super Mario Maker to generate stories with video games.
Digital Learning Activities for the Library, 2015-2017 Seattle Public Library Main Branch Seattle Public Library main branch has worked with Jason Yip’s KidsTeam UW in understanding how children want to learn the following technology: FINCH, Little Bits, TaleBlazer, BB-8. The reports created from KidsTeam UW lab was used in creating learning programs for Seattle Public Library youth programs.