UWTSD’s Cerebra Innovation Centre helps to inspire the next generation of designers

17 February 2023

Pupils from a Swansea school have been learning about disabilities and how to design products to help solve challenges at a workshop organised by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s Cerebra Innovation Centre (CIC) in Swansea.

Children examine a bespoke Cerebra product made of red moulded plastic.

The children from Gors Community School are studying ‘role models and heroes’ this term as their topic. In addition, they have an enclosed garden area they want to develop into a safe sensory garden area for their Special Teaching Needs pupils.

The Cerebra Innovation Centre (CIC) was established in 2005 as a collaboration between UWTSD and the national charity Cerebra. CIC design and build innovative, bespoke products to help children with disabilities to discover and engage with the world around them.

CIC Associate Professor and Cerebra Innovation Centre Manager, Dr Ross Head said : “The school asked if CIC would help by showing the pupils what we do, how we do it, how we think about problems and solutions, and in doing so, act as role models for the year 5 and 6 pupils.

“It was an amazing day; the children were full of enthusiasm and great ideas. As well as being incredibly well behaved, the children were super interested in our work and our projects and engaged really well with their tasks. The empathy modelling allowed them to understand what it might be like to live with a disability, and how one might solve design products to help with such a disability.”

Dr Ross Head taps a key on his laptop as he gives a talk in front of a projector screen.

Dr Head said Gors Primary School teacher Chris Jones asked the team to guide the pupils in designing an outdoor sensory space for the “sunshine class.”

“We hosted the children in our workshop at the University’s ALEX Building to kickstart their project,” he added.

“We invited them to the reading room and gave them a presentation of some of our projects, explaining how we approached the problems and how we thought about the designs and solutions.”

He said the children were split into smaller groups and looked at detailed investigation of some of the CIC products and empathy modelling (experiencing an action with limited function/sight etc), in which they taped up their hands to simulate a disability and tried to make a sandwich.

“Then we had a tour of the workshops, followed by designing/planning the sensory garden and imagining all the wonderful things they could create,” he added.

Chris Jones said: “It was a fantastic day and the pupils enjoyed visiting the workshop and being involved in such a hands-on way. It had such a positive impact on them.”