Curlybot : designing a new class of computational toys

Abstract

I 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 records how it has been moved on any flat surface and then plays back that motion accurately and repeatedly. Children can use curlybot to gain a strong intuition for advanced mathematical and computational concepts, like differential geometry, through play outside a traditional computer. Preliminary studies show that children can create gestures quickly, allowing them to iterate on the patterns that emerge, and successfully understanding and solving problems with curlybot. Programming by demonstration in this context makes the educational ideas implicit in the design of curlybot accessible to young children. curlybot can also act as an expressive tool because of its ability to remember the intricacies of the original gestures: every pause, acceleration, and even the shaking in the hand is recorded and played.