HATCH Potting Shed

After the phenomenal success of Firefly, and the parent feed-back forum, Firefly Garden, Leckey once again showed why they are industry leaders in disability design, by launching the co-creation platform, Hatch.

“Hatch is a website where a little idea can become a big deal for kids with special needs. Built by leading disability manufacturers, Leckey and Firefly, the Hatch website is open to ideas and inventions from anyone, anywhere who wants to help children with special needs.“

Back in April we got together with HATCH and Leckey to generate ideas for products which would help improve the lives of kids with special needs, and give feedback on the HATCH platform itself. For the ideation session we concentrated on 5 areas:

“Feeding time” “Playtime” “Bathing” “Swimming” and “Toileting”.

The questions asked were:

  • What would make feeding easier for children with disabilities? Maybe a coollooking coverall for messy mealtimes. Or a subtle G-tube device that stops passers-by thinking, “Gee – look at that!” How could you help?
  • Do bath chairs really need to take over the whole bathroom? Couldn’t somebody invent something lightweight and portable? What if someone made one that didn’t look like a medical contraption or take a team of powerlifters to move it? What if it could be you?
  • Using public toilets is a huge challenge for kids with disabilities. This problem stops enjoyable family days out and can be embarrassing for older kids. Can you help solve it?
  • Can you come up with a safe and practical device that makes pool time easier for these guys?
  • Special Needs Toy Accessibilitoy Play is a vital part of every child’s development. But parents often modify existing toys to make them more suitable for children with sensory issues or delayed motor skills. What could you invent to put the ‘fun’ in functional?

We had a super turn out between Leckey and The Potting Shed Dublin members in the very cool BOI Startups, who took great care of us. The volume and quality of ideas was staggering. Some of the results of this brainstorming session included inflatable star fish stations, self release feeding packs, child changing stations, and meal time utility belts, to name just a few!

It was a real pleasure for us to work on such important issues for this life changing company.

The event was supported by Irish Design 2015

The Potting Shed Dublin