Bakhtiar Mikhak

curlybot : designing a new class of computational toys

We introduce an educational toy, called curlybot, as the basis for a new class of toys aimed at children in their early stages of development — ages four and up. curlybot is an autonomous two-wheeled vehicle with embedded electronics that can record how it has been moved on any flat surface and then play back that motion accurately and repeatedly. Children can use curlybot to develop intuitions for advanced mathematical and computational concepts, like differential geometry, through play away from a traditional computer. In our preliminary studies, we found that children learn to use curlybot quickly. They readily establish an affective and body syntonic connection with curlybot, because of its ability to remember all of the intricacies of their original gesture; every pause, acceleration, and even the shaking in their hand is recorded. Programming by example in this context makes the educational ideas implicit in the design of curlybot accessible to young children.

MetaCricket: a designer's kit for making computational devices

We present the design of a construction kit, for building computational devices, called MetaCricket. MetaCricket consists of a set of hardware modules and the integrated software, which runs both on a development computer and within the MetaCricket hardware. MetaCricket provides a flexible interactive development environment for trying out new hardware and behaviors. The underlying architecture makes it easy for designers to expand the basic construction kit themselves with minimal engineering effort. Through a few examples, we show how designers, enabled by MetaCricket to be engineers of their own tools, are rethinking and transforming the very character of design principles in the digital age. MetaCricket was originally designed for use by children, but has been adopted by professional designers who are not professional engineers. These designers have found it incredibly liberating to directly implement their ideas without depending on engineers for assistance.

Video-Wikis and media fluency

The rapid growth in creation and availability of digital video presents unprecedented opportunities and challenges. Without parallel growth in structural information about rich formats in which ideas are expressed and communicated, we are headed for a crisis. If this trend continues, and evidence points in this direction, most of the web will be as accessible as a microfiche archive: a wealth of data with only high level descriptions. In this session, we demonstrate our Video-Wiki --- an integrated suite of web applications for collaborative markup and remixing of video content --- developed to make media more accessible to and malleable by children.

CODACHROME: a system for creating interactive electronic jewelry for children

CodaChrome is an interactive system for children to design and create their own electronic jewelry using both digital and traditional craft materials. Specifically, it describes the software and hardware components used for the jewelry design activity, and the two design sessions where children used the CodaChrome system to create their electronic jewelry out of a collection of beads and stones, and out of electronic materials like circuit boards, LEDs and wires. They programmed the animated color sequences (color patterns) using a custom made software environment that provides graphical tools (i.e. color palettes) and widgets like a timeline to facilitate the task.

A tangible architecture for creating modular, subsumption-based robot control systems

We present a new modular, reconfigurable architecture for building and interacting with subsumption-based robot controllers. A set of modules - with embedded sensing, communication and processing capabilities - divide up the subsumption architecture into self-contained behavioral layers that subsume each other according to the way the modules are physically stacked. On-board indicators of the internal state of each module help in programming and understanding the behavior of the robot in real-time. This offers novices, in particular children, a new environment to learn about a powerful metaphor for programming robots and other interactive systems in a hands-on and exploratory manner. We will also discuss a prototype implementation of this architecture and the results of a preliminary user study using the prototype with a group of children.

Optical sensing systems for primary-level science education

In the last three years, a number of Irish primary schools have been using LEGO Mindstorms technology in order to investigate the use of project-based learning as an alternative teaching tool. This has involved the use of LEGO bricks combined with standard electronic motors and some commercial sensors (e.g. temperature). In order to develop this project into the area of science education, we have developed a range of miniaturized optical sensors, which are compatible with the LEGO platform. This paper describes two such sensors that have been developed and fabricated for use with the LEGO platform, a collaboration between the MIT Media Lab and the National Centre for Sensor Research. In particular a working oxygen sensor has been designed and fabricated. The principal design features were compatibility with the programmable LEGO platforms and robustness for classroom use. This sensor uses the method of intensity quenching to determine oxygen concentration. In addition, simple color sensors have been produced. The aim of developing such sensors is to familiarize students with the concept of colour detection and to introduce them to the basic principles of spectroscopy. The performance of both sensor types and preliminary classroom results are reported.

CTRL/spl I.bar/SPACE: using animatronics to introduce children to computation

In this paper, we present hardware and a software environment called CTRL/spl I.bar/SPACE, specifically designed to introduce preliterate children to basic computational concepts. This is done through the control of an animatronic face whose individual components are used as an analogy for a programmable object. The software environment is visual, and the entire work is grounded in a critical historical view of computers and computation.