Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal

Collaborators: satish, donnaleo

Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal
Collaborators:

Tangible User Interface: Midterm Project Proposal

Project 1 - SmartCards (Priority 1)
Project 2 - Storytelling (Priority 2)

Note: We wish to present two ideas for the Midterm Project, we would like to take feedback and pointers from students and Kimiko before we freeze on one idea.

Team:
Donna Leo
Kurt Sookwongse
Satish Polisetti

OBJECT

1a. The prospective outcome/goal of the SmartCards game is to be guided through the rules of how to play a card game whilst playing the game. The cards could also be designed to give accessibility to the visually impaired, through braille embossed on each card, and a heat sensor instead of a visual display.  An example of a simple game is the card game 'War' (http://www.pagat.com/ website with rules to card games). This game is played with two or more players. The deck of cards are dealt out evenly, so each player has the same number of cards to begin.  The object/goal of the game is to get all the cards in the end, or if you cannot play to the end, the player with the most cards wins the game.  Each player places a card face up, and the player whose card is the higher rank wins the hand. This TUI for this game could be that when the cards are face up, the card with the higher rank could be indicated with a green light in the corner of the card, and the other cards in play would display a red light.  The green light card wins the hand.  If this game is played by a young child, the color indicator could teach the child/children playing the game which card has the higher value.  Though the game of 'War' has not strategy, the SmartCards could could be programmed to be able to play more complex card games.

1b. Another outcome of the SmartCards for younger children is its simple extension to learn basic mathematics. For example one child can turn a card face up with number "5" and another with "8", the green light will glow on the card with number 8 and red on the card 5 - child can easily learn which number is bigger or smaller or equal. Another example - a green light will glow only when you place cards numbered "1", "2", "3" etc in sequence and a red light if they are put in any other sequence like "1", "3", "2", the child can hence learn numbers more quickly in the process. We can extend this to multiplication where we cards 2, 3 are placed one beside the other and number 6 appears on the 3rd card.

1c. Learning words or Anagrams with SmartCards - would help children learn new words or develop their skills to recollect words. Say we have cards with alphabets - "A", "E", "M", "T" and a controlled vocabulary. The green light will glow when the child makes words like "TEAM", "ATE", "MATE", "MAT", "TEA", "EAT", "TAME" - (I could think of 7 possibilities) and not for  "AMT" or "EAM". This exercise can make children learn new words, recollect old words and scrabble around.

1d. Basic Science with SmartCards - would help children learn simple chemistry, physics and terminology associated with it. Say we have "H", " O", "2", placing of "H", "2", "O" in a sequence should glow green light on card which has a picture of "Water" or display "Water" on an empty card or generate sound of water ripples in the background. Other extensions could be to glow green light when "F""=""M""A" (force=mass x accelaration)are put in an order or "V"="I""R" (voltage = current x resistance) etc.

2. Storytelling fosters the desire is to facilitate the sharing (and creation?) of knowledge between children, providing methods that may bridge barriers such as language or literacy levels. Following some of the ideas of modern literacy and education theory, there is the idea that there are multiple literacies, not limited to the written word. This Storytelling application helps to broaden the scope of the act of storytelling to involve students and promote creativity. This is designed to encourage and include children who are just learning to write, may have come from somewhere with a different official native language, or may not be extremeley confident in their prose. The prospective goal is to create an easier, more interactive way for children to share stories while broadening the scope of participants.

SUBJECT

1. The subject or user of the SmartCards could be from the very young to the very old, anyone with an interest in playing and learning card games.  There must be at least two players.   For young users there could be games such as Go Fish, Crazy Eights or War, for the older player there could be games such as Poker,  Gin Rummy, or Blackjack. The user may have to have some understanding of the game they wish to play.  The SmartCards will help them to expand there knowledge of the game through the availability to access to the game rules, and to be guided through the game.

Points 1b and 1c are more targeted to children to learn basic mathematics, science and language.

2. The subject for Storytelling is targeted toward younger children, possibly in the grade school ages of 5-10. Because the object begins unfamiliar and is shaped into familiarity by the users, the children will probably not recognize the storytelling objects as anything particularly familiar.  But the act of molding and shaping and playing around with a hands-on physical object may be similar to playing with toys, or molding things using Play-Doh or Clay.  Especially at young ages, it will hopefully be natural for the users to be very tactile and curious as they pick the objects up for the first time.  The users targeted also include children from various backgrounds and languages, who might use this to communicate across language and literacy levels.

TOOL

1. SmartCards is a deck of playing cards in which the instructions of how to play the card game is embedded in the cards.  This deck of card is based on a traditional deck of playing cards (52 cards), but this could vary based on a different cultural context.  This card deck will have access to the rules to of numerous card games. The box in which the cards come in would offer the key or the control to access to the rules of any game programmed into the system.  Each card would be coded so that it would be identified by the game. The tool (SmartCards) helps to mediate the relationship in that the tool can be used to teach the user the rules to various card games, while playing the game. .  Since the cards will all be coded, the game can be monitored and the user is given feedback on how to play. SmartCards are a token, in that they "physically resemble the information they represent" (Fishkin, 353).  The taxonomy on the embodiment/matrix for the SmartCards game could be defined as full embodiment, and full metaphor.

1b. SmartCards can also be a set of customized cards which display certain numbers or characters (pre-programmed or randomly changing by time) which will be used in learning basic mathematics, science and language.

2. Storytelling - there will be multiple physical objects that help a child or children organize, create, and convey a story. Possible inputs may be tactile/visual by being something malleable and formed into shapes that are directly or indirectly related to what the story involves. There may be an audio input that records and then later either simply plays back narrative or accompanying sounds/music, or that also translates to some other language. The end result may be some visual display on a screen (distant embodiment) that "plays back" the story so that it can be shared to the entire group. The molded objects may have memory and a series of actions and movements of all the objects could be replayed in the manner that the child directs. Depending on the story, this could potentially serve to teach each other about different cultures or backgrounds or share specific specialized knowledge that's obtained from their home environment. Or it may serve as a way to communicate something when a child may not be confident in his/her writing/speaking abilities. By steering away from reading/writing, the tool's goal is to ease the social interaction/pressure that might occur during the activity of storytelling or story sharing and make it easier to put together thoughts/ideas/stories in a way that can be communicated between children more easily.  Depending on the level of experience with the tool, there may be options of story templates where the children are not entirely on their own and are guided through some basic story telling models. At first, the molded objects are simply containers, as there is no resemblance to anything else. But during use, the objects that are molded could be defined as tokens as they resemble the information being conveyed and also as falling into the noun metaphor, as they will look like, but not act like since they will be inanimate.