Concept · not made
PopWave Grid
A push-pop panel with a rippling texture
Care-Ed · my initiative, 2024 to 2026
Hi, I'm Ishaan. Stress gave me restless hands. I gave them something to build.
Two years ago I was a stressed teenager clicking a pen under an exam desk. Instead of hiding it, I took it apart. I designed fidget tools and taught myself CAD and Blender to print them. I opened a helpline so other teens had someone to tell. I started a podcast to ask people who know more than I do. And I show up on the field for kids with disabilities, because a game does what a fidget does, at full size.
Move across to spin
01 Tri-Spin · my first designParts and files
- designs, six printed
- 8
- designs, six printed
- printable parts, free to download
- 21
- printable parts, free to download
- angles on one problem
- 8
- angles on one problem
- years, and counting
- 2
- years, and counting
01 Tri-Spin02 Clicker03 FocusSlide04 Grounding Pebble05 FlexLink06 RhythmDial07 SenseCube08 Gyroscopic Spinner
The problem
Teen stress does not have one fix. So I tried eight.
Most teenagers I know are stressed, and most of us hide it, because the usual answer is to be told to relax. I did not want to be told to relax. I wanted something to do with my hands, someone who would listen, and proof that the problem could be worked on like any other problem.
So Care-Ed is not one thing. It is every angle I have been able to take on the same problem in two years, from a desk with a clicky pen to a podcast studio to a sports field.
01
Noticed that fidgeting was helping
Stress showed up in my hands before it showed up in words. Lego, pen clicks, a pocket figure. I took the habit seriously instead of hiding it.
02
Designed tools for the moment
One tactile action per tool: spin, press, slide, turn, bend, index. Quiet enough for a classroom.
03
Learned CAD, Blender and Python
A drawing cannot be pressed. I taught myself to model parts, then to script each mechanism so anyone can rebuild it.
04
Manufactured them on a 3D printer
Printed, fitted, measured, reprinted. Six designs through the printer; two more modelled and queued.
05
Listened on a confidential helpline
For what is behind the moment. Someone hears you out, then pushes for change with people who can act.
06
Talked on a podcast
Long conversations with practitioners like Angira Chakravorty Dasgupta, and the story of the lab in the open.
07
Showed up for sport and fundraising
Sports sessions for children with disabilities, volunteering with institutions, mental health fundraising events.
08
Gave away every file
21 parts, 9 Blender files, 6 scripts, free under CC BY 4.0. Print one, change it, send me a photo.
01 · Year one
I was stressed, and I noticed what my hands were doing.
Like every other teen, I went through stretches of stress: studies, losing a cricket game, or just a phase. What I noticed was that during those stretches my hands were always busy. I went back to Lego. I clicked pens under the desk. I carried a pocket action figure everywhere.
The fidgeting was not the problem. It was helping. My concentration was better, the stress was lower, and the obvious question followed: why not make actual fidget toys?
02 · Year one
Three sketches and a helpline.
I launched Care-Ed as two things at once. A confidential helpline, where a teen could tell me what was going on at school or at home and have someone push for change on their behalf. And a sketchbook of three concept fidget tools, with a line on the website that said, honestly, that I had not made any of them yet.
The helpline came first on purpose. A fidget helps in the moment; the line is for what is behind the moment.
Concept · not made
Focus Petal Spinner
A four-petal click-spinner
Concept · not made
SoftSphere
A weighted textured ball
03 · Year one
Sketches became parts: Blender, Python and a printer.
A drawing cannot be pressed. To find out whether an idea felt right, I had to make it, so I learned Blender to model parts, then Python so that each mechanism could be rebuilt from primitives and animated by a script anyone could read.
Then a printer, and my first real lesson: a part that is right in the model can seize on the desk. A 0.2 mm change in a hole decides whether a rotor spins.
Press and hold
02 Clicker · my clicky pen, rebuiltParts and files
04 · Year one
Spin, press, slide: my first three.
Each design does one thing. Tri-Spin is a rotor on a fixed axle with weighted ends. Clicker is a plunger over a printed flexure leaf, a spring with no spring in it. FocusSlide is a carriage on two rails with hard stops at each end; I built it for lessons, where a spinner is too loud.
Move across to spin
01 Tri-Spin · printedParts and files
Press and hold
02 Clicker · printedParts and files
Move left and right
03 FocusSlide · printedParts and files
05 · Year two
Tools for holding on, not for playing.
My second year started with a different question. Some days the point is not to play but to hold on to something. The Grounding Pebble disappears into a closed hand, with one ridged wheel for the thumb. FlexLink is three segments on two pins that hold whatever pose you bend them into. RhythmDial gives a turn a tempo: twelve marks and a pawl, something to count.
Quieter tools, and harder to get right. Texture, clearance and the feel of a detent are all decided at the printer.
Move across, feel the detents
06 RhythmDial · twelve detentsParts and files
06 · Year two
Three mechanisms in a cube, two rings on two pivots.
Talking to other students, I kept hearing that the right fidget changes with the mood. SenseCube is my answer: a wheel on top, a slider on the side and a button on the front, all inside one 40 mm cube. The Gyroscopic Spinner came from a manga I was reading, where a character named Gyro throws steel balls with spin. Two rings, two pivots, motion in every direction.
Both are fully modelled. Printing and fit-tuning them is my next job.
Move across and up
08 Gyroscopic Spinner · modelledParts and files
Spin, slide, press
07 SenseCube · modelledParts and files
07 · Year two
The other half: people.
The lab was never the whole initiative. Tools reach the hands; the rest needs people. So I run the Care-Ed podcast, conversations about teen mental health with people who actually work on it. My first long one was with Angira Chakravorty Dasgupta, founder of SVã flo, who has worked with more than ten thousand people and explained, better than I could, why stress shows up in the body first. Thank you, Angira.
And I show up. Through Care-Ed I volunteer at sports sessions for children with disabilities, with institutions, and at mental health fundraising events. A game gives the body something to do and the mind a reason to be there, which is the whole idea of Care-Ed with the fidget taken out of it. The four parts of Care-Ed.
On the podcast
Angira Chakravorty Dasgupta
Life coach, founder of SVã flo
An M.Sc in bioinformatics who taught biology, danced Odissi for twenty years, then trained in dance movement therapy, art therapy, NLP and sound healing. She founded Healing Rhyyithm in 2015 and SVã flo after it, and has worked with more than ten thousand people across schools, NGOs, corporates and individuals.
On the field
Sport for children with disabilities
Volunteering at sports sessions where a game does what a fidget does, at full size.
08 · Now
Every file, free.
Two years on, my sketchbook is a parts list. Every STL, Blender file and Python script is on this site under a Creative Commons licence, because the student who needs a fidget most is not the one who can order it. Print one, change it, send me a photo.
My first site
- Three concept sketches, none made
- A helpline and a promise
- A podcast with no episodes
Now
- Eight mechanisms, six printed
- The helpline, a podcast, sport for disabled kids, fundraising
- 21 STL parts, 9 Blender files, 6 scripts, CC BY 4.0