skip to main content
10.1145/1709886.1709938acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesteiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
demonstration

Constructing with movement: kinematics

Published: 24 January 2010 Publication History

Abstract

This paper describes Kinematics: a novel construction toy for children consisting of both active (shape-changing or rotating) and passive building blocks. In comparison to similar systems, the active components of Kinematics do not require programming or recording. This allows children to focus on reassembly and direct observation of the resulting movement from simple changes made to a constructed structure.
The gameplay of Kinematics is similar to classic construction games; by re-combining different elements, one can assemble increasingly complex structures. The shape-changing/rotating feature of the active blocks results in movement of the whole structure. The geometric shapes of these blocks are cubes, cuboids, cylinders, and triangular prisms. Plug-and-socket connectors (TRRS jacks) hold the blocks together and are the pivot points for rotating. They also provide data and power lines.
Through simply rotating a single element, or putting it in a different position within the structure, the child can directly and intuitively manipulate the resulting movement. We propose Kinematics as a playful, intuitive, and haptic way of learning about motion in the physical world.

References

[1]
Resnick, M., Martin, F., Berg, R., Borovoy, R., Colella, V., Kramer, K., Silverman, B., Digital manipulatives: new toys to think with. In Proc. SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 281--287, 1998.
[2]
Topobo. http://www.topobo.com
[3]
Raffle, H., Parkes, A. and Ishii, H. Topobo: A constructive assembly system with kinetic memory. in Human Factors in Computing (CHI) '04, ACM, 2004.
[4]
Leinweber U., Baukästen -- Technisches Spielzeug vom Biedermeier bis zur Jahrtausendwende. VMA Verlag-Drei Lilien Edition, Wiesbaden, Germany (1999), 32--35.
[5]
Professor Seymour Papert's Homepage http://www.papert.org/
[6]
Arduino: an open-source electronic prototyping platform http://arduino.cc/

Cited By

View all
  • (2022)A Meta-Analysis of Tangible Learning Studies from the TEI ConferenceProceedings of the Sixteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3490149.3501313(1-17)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2022
  • (2019)PickCellsProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300503(1-14)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
  • (2018)Mechanism PerfboardProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3173985(1-11)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences
TEI '10: Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction
January 2010
414 pages
ISBN:9781605588414
DOI:10.1145/1709886
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 24 January 2010

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. children
  2. digital manipulative
  3. education
  4. learning
  5. modular
  6. programming by demonstration
  7. robotics
  8. tangible interface
  9. toy

Qualifiers

  • Demonstration

Conference

TEI '10
Sponsor:

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 393 of 1,367 submissions, 29%

Upcoming Conference

TEI '25

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)15
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 22 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2022)A Meta-Analysis of Tangible Learning Studies from the TEI ConferenceProceedings of the Sixteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3490149.3501313(1-17)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2022
  • (2019)PickCellsProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300503(1-14)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
  • (2018)Mechanism PerfboardProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3173985(1-11)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018
  • (2016)LINKKIProceedings of the 6th Annual Conference on Creativity and Fabrication in Education10.1145/3003397.3003411(86-89)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2016
  • (2015)Imagined Physics: Exploring Examples of Shape-Changing InterfacesCognitive Robotics10.1201/b19171-10(89-112)Online publication date: 17-Sep-2015
  • (2015)HandiMateProceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children10.1145/2771839.2771841(11-20)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2015
  • (2015)Sticky ActuatorProceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/2677199.2680600(77-84)Online publication date: 15-Jan-2015
  • (2015)HandiMateProceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/2677199.2680570(117-124)Online publication date: 15-Jan-2015
  • (2014)GaussBricksProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2556288.2557105(3153-3162)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2014
  • (2013)Exploring the design space of shape-changing objectsProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces10.1145/2513506.2513533(251-260)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2013
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media