The P.K. Yonge FRC Team 4118: Roaring Riptide held their annual adapt-a-thon and adapted 26 new toys for local schools, families, and children at UF Shands Children’s Rehab Center. 

As part of this event, the team collaborated with the University of St. Augustine Health Sciences training program for occupational therapists. Earlier in November, the high-school team held a workshop with the group from St. Augustine to teach them how to build accessible “raindrop” switches, which were then paired with the toys adapted at the holiday event.  

During this holiday toy hack event, the high-school students taught the soon-to-be therapists how to build jacks, switches and make new, standard toys accessible. toys such as talking dinosaurs, Nerf Guns, My Pal Scouts and bubble blowers.  

“My favorite thing about adapting toys and working on AT projects is seeing the look of wonder and excitement in kids’ eyes when they’re able to interact with their toys through the use of our accessible button switch AT solution,” Team Lead Joseph Santiago said in a press release.  

Adapting a toy requires the use of processes such as reverse engineering, 3D printing and soldering to attach an external button or buttons on toys instead of relying only on the original button or switch.  

Roaring Riptide: FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team 4118, was founded in 2011 and since then has created over 20 individualized assistive devices and provided over 600 adapted toys.