UbiPlay: an interactive playground and visual programming tools for children

ABSTRACT

Children develop important skills at playgrounds. Physical play promotes health and reacting to other children establishes social behavior patterns. By augmenting playground elements with sensor technology, video displays, and computer software, we pursued to take the experience further. This paper describes what was achieved; UbiPlay, a technology platform for programmable interactive playgrounds. UbiPlay allows children to create and play games in interactive playground environments. We present a play space built using the technology and results from qualitative evaluations, performed with 44 school children between the ages of 10 and 12. Results indicate that end-user programmable playgrounds like ours can provide much stimulus and excitement for children.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Graphical user interfaces (GUI)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.6 Programming Environments
          Subjects: Interactive environments

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation)

Keywords:
children, interactive environments, playgrounds, visual programming environments