At Perkins school for the blind, eye prosthetics are not uncommon amongst the students. While they are usually comfortable and easy to use, it can be difficult for some to become accustom to them.

We met Eleanor, a student at Perkins, who will need to use an eye prosthetic soon. One of the challenges Eleanor will face because of her new prosthetic is the sensation of an object coming in contact with her face, especially when controlled by another person. It is likely that someone else will assist Eleanor with the placement of her prosthetic because her fine motor skills are affected by her Cerebral Palsy.

We knew we wanted to design a fun way for Eleanor to practice letting someone put an object in contact with her face. One of Eleanor's favorite toys is a horse named Horse, which inspired us to make a giraffe named Giraffe. We decided to make a giraffe because we wanted our design to be fun and familiar to Eleanor so that she would look forward to using it. The Giraffe works with a manual control that resembles the motion of scissors so that it is easy for Eleanor or someone else to use. A curved scissor lift is controlled by Eleanor or someone else to move the head of the giraffe towards her face. We hope that practice with the Giraffe Named Giraffe will help Eleanor become comfortable with her eye prosthetic.