topobo: a constructive assembly system with kinetic memory icampus symposium december 2, 2006 hayes...
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Topobo: A Constructive Assembly System with Kinetic Memory
iCampus Symposium December 2, 2006
Hayes Raffle & Amanda Parkes Tangible Media GroupMIT Media Laboratory
Today’s Workshop
• Topobo system design
• Results of evaluation with children ages 5-13
• On-going outreach with Topobo
• Hands-on play with Topobo - build your own walking creature
• young children (ages 2-6) can be formally educated. • physical objects (“gifts”) enable learning about common natural forms and processes. • learning happens through physical manipulation of objects, as formalized by Piaget.
Early Educational Manipulatives: learning by doingFroebel’s kindergarten “gifts” (1840)
Cuisinaire rods let children experiment with number, equality, and algebraic ideas.
Educational manipulatives: specially designed tools
With pattern blocks, children can explore geometry
K’Nex®tectonic building
Construction toys: learning through building
LEGO® stacking
ZOOB®biological building
LEGO Mindstorms® Elec. Blocks Peta Wyeth 2002
Digital manipulatives
Combining educational manipulatives with computation and communications technology can help children create new kinds of models to understand advanced ideas like feedback and emergence.
curlybotPhil Frei, 2002
Digital manipulatives — LEGO Mindstorms®
• GUI is used for procedural programming• abstract and flexible• decoupled from physical modeling processes
curlybotPhil Frei, 2002
I/O BrushKimiko Ryokai, 2004
Tangible Interfaces for learning — aesthetics
• physical structure does not represent control structure• decoupled program structure is limited, not obvious how to edit• child can express desires and aesthetics in the model
Early Design Studies : dynamics
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Early Design Studies: Virtual motion
Karl Sims
Ed Burton, SodaPlay, 2001
• Distributed actuation• Modular, scalable system
Early Design Studies: modular robotics
Kotay 1999: Real Molecule Yim 2000: Polybot
How to design strong and flexible structures? • Crystals: regular arrangement of solids • Bone structures: spatial looping for strength
Early Design Studies : structure
Thompson 1942: crystal packing and structure of a bird’s wing bone
Early Design Studies: kinetic & gestural representation
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase,1912
Giacomo Balla, Abstracted Speed, 1913
Topobo systemConstructive assembly + kinetic memory
What is the spirit of a building toy, the spirit of manipulatives?How can computation enhance this process?
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• Be accessible, yet sophisticated (appeal to multiple aged users)
• Be robust
• Be meaningful even if the power is turned off
• Be expressive (afford certain activities, but don’t prescribe “right” and “wrong” uses)
• Engage multiple senses
• Be scalable
Design Principles
First Prototypes
Prototype using cricketmicrocontrollers
Breadboard prototype & interface
• foster collaboration• accessible to younger children
Scaling is based on the fibonacci ratio • models natural structures • like scaling of human bones
Passive Components
Scaling 3:2
• Ergonomic and intuitive• Look, work, and feel like a “real toy”
Active Component
power/commport
LEGO connector
clutch
Axis of rotation
Inside the clutch
Inside an Active Component
• based on modular robotics technology
button
Red/Green LED
40 MHz microcontroller
power distributioncircuitry
power / commports
servo motor
Queens add centralized control
• Actives mimic the Queen
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Interactions with 80 Kids: K, 2nd & 8th grades
• Implicitly teach physics concepts
• Usually these ideas are taught to college students.
• Can an tangible interface make them accessible to young kids?
Kindergarten: a “robot” toy & issues of complexity
• interface design was accessible, but a bit challenging.
• Queens were confusing
• collaboration
• it’s alive!
• a “robot” toy
• cause and effect?
A collaborative kindergarten creation.
Second grade activity: Methodology
• warm-up exercises: walking very slowly and talking about how their bodies moved.
• We showed several models of Topobo. How does Topobo walk?
• Coincident i/o was more magical.
• made: “ant, scorpion, spaceship, horse, rollies…”
Second grade: a building toy for play and discovery
2nd grade static scorpion shows Topobo is “meaningful even if the power is turned off.”
For about an hour, Dave tries to make a walking animal by testing ideas based on our examples and his own body.
Session 1• warm-up exercises with teacher: walk very slowly, then run. Write about how their bodies worked.
• We demonstrate how to use Topobo without showing any walking creations.
• 45 minutes free play, learn to use the system
• Homework: answer questions + draw a creation to build with unlimited parts.
Eighth grade Physics-By-Design class: Methodology
Session 2• Introduced Queen to all students
• With lab partner, draw a “walking creature” using up to 4 Actives.
• With lab partner, build a walking creature (30 minutes).
• Interview about the creation and design process, including students’ critique of Topobo system.
Eighth grade Physics-By-Design class: Methodology
Eighth graders: Physics by design
Design style: “Iterative Design” • form and motion are developed in tandem using an iterative and cumulative process. • final creations are different than original designs, but generally work better.
Eighth graders: Physics by design
Design style: “Compartmentalized design” • designing form is separate from designing motion. • final creations look like original designs, but do not walk. • through physical manipulation, children learned complex interrelationships between form and motion.
Pedagogical Topics: dynamic balance/center of mass
• children’s creations fall over
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Pedagogical Topics: torque / leverage
• levers can reveal limited strength of Actives
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Pedagogical Topics: Coordination of moving parts
• Coordinate with a peer• Queen to coordinate motions in time.
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Pedagogical Topics: local - global system behavior
• Children discovered use of Queen as a remote controller for debugging
• Queens show how a small local change is related to the movements of a global structure.
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Pedagogical Topics: movement in multiple degrees of freedom
• by combining Actives to make a single motion, children can experiment with creating motion in several DOF.
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Animals and Machines
• body syntonic learning (Papert, 1980).• kids understand motions in terms of their bodily experience.
Age Range Findings
• both 2nd and 8th graders thought Topobo was probably designed for their age range.
Lessons learned from studies with children• A design interface should support different design styles, including iterative design.
• The tangible interface was intuitive for exploring walking robots because it responded to the forces of nature that constrain real walking animals.
• A tangible interface should afford as much of its physical functionality as possible.
• Kids’ wanted to save and share their creations.
In addition to classrooms, Topobo has been shown at numerous museums, galleries, and festivals includingArs Electronica, SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies, Wired NextFest, and ArtBots, with more upcoming appearancesWe are also planning weekend workshops at the Boston Museum of Science.
On-going outreach: workshops
Topobo at Wired NextFest 2004
On-going longitudinal outreach
• partner with Tufts CEEO (Center for Engineering Educational Outreach) to develop Topobo materials for classrooms and afterschool programs• math and science curriculum development, Shady Hill Elementary School, Cambridge
• engineering curriculum development, Brookline Public High School for units on biomechanics and locomotion
• technology & education research with at-risk youth and the elderly, U. of Joensuu, Finland