Assistive Magnetic Tile Toy Grips

This is a set of grip ideas to help children with disabilities interact with a certain game that uses tiles on a board to program a small robot. The tiles are coincidentally magnetic, and these grips should allow more children to interact with the game than before.

Originally designed for a user request through my then-employer's (the Neil Squire Society) Makers Making Change initiative.

This has had some user testing with clients, and it's posted here in the hope that someone else might find a use for lightly magnetic pickup grips. Designs should be relatively easy to modify in OpenSCAD: the overall dimensions and magnet sizes are listed at the top of the code.

As provided, these designs use the following parts:

• 0.25" x 0.1" Rare-Earth magnet, Lee Valley item 99K3101
• 3/8" Cup for 1/4" Magnet, Lee Valley item 99K3251
• 3/8" High-Friction Disc for 1/4" Magnet, Lee Valley item 99K3450

The magnet cup greatly increases the pull of the magnet, and the high friction disc should stop the tile sliding about. Each magnet has a tiny red dot on one face: the dot should be hidden inside the cup for it to attract a game tile. Note that you only get one shot fitting a magnet in the cup: once it’s in, it’s never coming out.

This is the fourth revision of the grips: they now use a smaller magnet in a cup, covered with a non-slip sticker.

See companion design [Draft] Game Go Button.