Case study — MDes, UC Berkeley
Draft — your turn. This “My part” blurb is my placeholder. Replace it in your own words with the specifics of your role you want front and centre — then delete this note.
A studio team project. My focus was the physical and interaction design — the soft two-part cube, its tactile textures, and the electronics that let a squeeze on one cube surface as light and haptics on its partner.
Autistic children often play alone; cooperative play can be hard to enter organically and, for many, a genuine source of anxiety. KUBE starts from one question — how might play itself become the way through that anxiety?
KUBE is a pair of soft, palm-sized cubes. Alone, a child in a moment of duress can feel the textured faces and match their breathing to a slow pulse of light — a calming ritual entirely on their own terms.
Together, the two cubes are linked over radio. Tilt or shake one and the other buzzes; squeeze one and its partner glows in reply. Cooperation becomes a quiet back-and-forth that never demands words or eye contact.
The pronounced surface textures double as an outlet for stimming — repetitive, self-soothing touch — so the object works with a child’s instincts rather than against them.
