A tangible programming tool for children to cultivate computational thinking.
Game and creation are activities which have good potential for computational thinking skills. In this paper we present T-Maze, an economical tangible programming tool for children aged 5-9 to build computer programs in maze games by placing wooden blocks. Through the use of computer vision technology, T-Maze provides a live programming interface with real-time graphical and voice feedback. We conducted a user study with 7 children using T-Maze to play two levels of maze-escape games and create their own mazes. The results show that T-Maze is not only easy to use, but also has the potential to help children cultivate computational thinking like abstraction, problem decomposition, and creativity.
Beijing Key Lab of Human-Computer Interaction, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
Danli
D
Wang
Beijing Key Lab of Human-Computer Interaction, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
Tingting
0000-0002-2302-8837
T
Wang
Chongqing Medicine Exchange Co., Ltd., Chongqing 404100, China.
Zhen
Z
Liu
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003405:Creativity; D056228:Feedback, Sensory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D033281:Nontherapeutic Human Experimentation; D011340:Problem Solving; D012984:Software; D013850:Thinking; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D018910:Video Games