Strawbies: explorations in tangible programming

ABSTRACT

In this demo we present Strawbies, a realtime tangible programming game designed for children ages 5 to 10. Strawbies is played by constructing physical programs out of wooden tiles in front of an iPad. This interaction is made possible with the use of an Osmo play system that includes a mirror to reflect images in front of the iPad through the front-facing camera. We combined this system with the TopCodes computer vision library for fast and reliable image recognition. Here we describe a set of principles that guided our iterative design process along with an overview of testing sessions with children that informed our most recent instantiation of Strawbies.

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing