Sensors and software installed in a Fisher Price activity board allow crèche kids to send pre-programmed messages to the internet, where their parents can keep track while working.

The project, titled “Twoddler”, was developed by masters students Gert Vos and Bart Swennen, together with Johannes Taelman from the Expertise Centre for Digital Media, as one of the 35 applications for the INCA Award of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT). The idea, however, first arose as part of the university’s Mobile and Pervasive Computing study module.

Twitter is an internet application that allows users to send short messages of up to 140 characters to their “followers”, who have signed up to receive them. In Twoddler, each child has a Twitter account set up in his or her name, with the parents signing up as followers.

At the day-care facility, meanwhile, each child has an activity board where the usual beepers and bells are connected to a variety of sensors which, when triggered, send a programmed message to Twitter. Parents can check up during the day (providing their workplace permits Twitter connections at work – and get “a feeling of presence and connection with their toddler in day care,” the team explained.

Patricia Ceysens, minister for science and enterprise, handed over the €5,000 award for the project, which the jury described as “a good, well implemented idea, full of potential.”

Second prize, meanwhile, went to Hupskadee, an application designed to bring together babysitters and parents needing their services.

http://research.edm.uhasselt.be/twoddler.