Finalist: Expressing
Interaction Awards 2016
Step should win in the “Expressing” category because it represent an innovative, engaging and creative way of approaching music production for children between 6 and 100 years old.
By using Step, children are able to record a sound and match it with a coloured tag and then, by placing different coloured tags on the track and by adjusting the tempo, they will create music!
It’s a simplified version of a professional step sequencer and gives children the possibility to sample sounds and use them to create melodies, beats and loops.
By using this toy they are silently and playfully introduced to basic concepts of music production such as tracks (channels), tempo, sampling and loops.
The design the toy is inspired by professional sequencers in order to create a direct link with machines that children will be going to use in their musical future.
As a toy designer, the Expressing category is the most exiting and fun to work with. Children are a bomb of creativity and they need to express themselves in many different ways. Music is definitely one of the most espressive activities that humans can perform after language because It makes us think, dance, sing and gives us emotions.
Step wants to explore and foster the innate expressing abilities that are present in al human beings and that in children are such an important part of their intellectual and physical development.
