She rewired the toy aisle so every kid can press the button

A toy that needs a tiny button pressed is, for some children, a toy that does not work. Ilana Zimmerman decided that was a fixable bug.

Zimmerman is a student at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco. She started adapting toys during an independent study with the Oakland Unified School District’s special education department, according to the school, and adapted more than 100 in that first stretch. Then she turned it into a club.

The method is simple and clever. Members open up electronic toys and rework the circuitry so they run on larger external buttons, joysticks and other interfaces that are easier for children with physical or cognitive disabilities to use. The school says the club builds a lending library that families in Oakland can check out. Her Diller Teen Awards profile adds other builds: an adapted toy car, accessible gaming controllers, and a custom bidet with foot pedals for a 12-year-old without arms.

The point is money as much as engineering. Commercial adaptive products can be expensive, and the club’s work is free. Requests come from occupational therapists, school districts and child service organizations.

The scale has grown fast. The school reports the club adapted over 200 toys in its first year and received an $8,000 award from the YMCA’s Youth Empowerment Fund. By the time of the Diller profile, it had more than 80 volunteers, hundreds of toys adapted and nearly $16,000 raised, serving the Oakland, San Francisco and El Dorado Hills school districts. Zimmerman won a 2026 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award in the disability justice and technology category.

She keeps the account modest. “It is both super fun and super fulfilling,” she said, according to Lick-Wilmerding. “I am so happy to see the joy on the kids’ and teachers’ faces.”

Soldering irons, it turns out, can be a form of accessibility policy. Zimmerman just works faster than most legislatures.