Current Students and Staff

// University News

21 Sep 2015

Graduate designs toy to connect military families

Product design graduate, Hannah Sage, has designed a toy featuring technology which allows families to stay in touch while deployed overseas.

Hannah’s invention, Milo, is a lion that is able to record messages from loved ones before they embark on a six month tour. The concept is that, before a soldier is deployed, he or she hides 24 tokens around the family home. Each week, the family receives a clue on Milo’s screen to help them find one of the tokens.

Once it’s been located, they place it in Milo’s base unit to unlock the video. They can then record and send a video message back to the soldier.

The idea for the product came from Hannah’s own personal experiences of having close family serve in the army.

She comments: “I know how hard this can be – my father has been in the army all his life and my sister’s boyfriend has been on tour in Afghanistan – so I wanted to create a product that would help. Milo solves this problem in an enjoyable, engaging and interactive way that involves the whole family.”

Hannah is due to showcase her concept on 22 September at the Inventors Workshop in Northamptonshire.