Here at Made by Many we have been working on a very exciting project called Hackaball. We're really excited about how it has been coming together and we are at a stage where we want to test it with real users again. The project is ramping up for a Kickstarter and we're in the process re-designing and refining a lot of elements. If you're interested in seeing the guts of how that works, you can follow along at home here.

Hackaball is a digital toy for children that’s in the development process here at Made by Many. We believe learning should be active, stimulate imagination and most of all, fun. With Hackaball, children learn computing concepts like sequencing through play, developing a logical mind-set necessary to learn real programming without even realising it.

There is only so much we can learn inside the walls of Made by Many and we are now at a point where we’d like to test our new experience design with children aged between 7 - 11. We want to know if it’s fun, how it can be used, and if there is anything missing from it. The way we work is through a design process involving co-creation, which means that the kids we’ll work with will get to play with the ball, tell us what they think it is and what they think it should become. That may all sound a little dry, but rest assured, the majority of the testing will involve play.

We are looking for children who think it would be fun to help us. The sessions will be scheduled before or after school at different locations in London and will last for one hour. Each child participant will receive £15. We'll ask for at least one parent to be present, who'll be compensated with £35 each - for their time. We would really love to have children sign up together, with a few friends of a similar age. If we are oversubscribed we will choose participants at random.

If you, or your children are interested in helping with this toy testing, please sign up here

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