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River Doyle and 2 OthersZach Shea
Jere Nierenberg

The Hugging Hand is a mechanical toy designed to be used by kids in schools to relieve stress. In its first iteration the Hugging Hand was powered using batteries. The Hugging Hand works when a person places pressure on the handheld device by squeezing their fingers; this causes a one-to-one ratio of pressure to be brought down on the back of their hand this function and allows for someone to feel comforted--as if their hand is being held.  The fact that the Hugging Hand was electronically powered was a feature we thought could be improved so we made it our goal to make an improved version of the Hugging Hand that while still having the same function as its predecessor will no longer require batteries.Research shows that holding hands and using a weighted blanket can relieve stress and anxiety and while it would be nice for students to sit in class under a weighted blanket holding hands with their classmate this scenario is in fact unrealistic.