BlockyTalky: A Physical Computing Tool Kit Designed for Networked Learners

• In Event: Roundtable Session 31
  In Roundtable Session: Technologies for Making, Makerspaces, and Makers: An Interactive Symposium

Abstract

Physical computing is commonplace in maker projects, and many educators are eager to bring physical computing into the classroom. The most common approach is through the Arduino micro-controller platform. But Arduino was never intended to be used as a teaching tool (Blikstein, in press), and can be difficult to use for simple projects, even for computer scientists (Guyer, 2015). Despite the growing appetite for physical computing in educational settings, little attention has been paid to participatory/developmental trajectories for learning physical computing. BlockyTalky is a toolkit that my students and I have created in order to investigate how to create developmentally responsive materials for youth creating their own physical computing projects, especially projects that involve networked interaction.

We scaffold (Pea, 2004) the development of learners’ technical skills by offering them pathways from simple building blocks to more complex ones so that they can quickly get started creating new products, while also scaling (Repenning, 2010) toward increasing complexity. Other toolkits for physical computing lack this scaffolding: Arduino requires learners to grapple with considerable hardware and software complexity to produce even very simple creations. LEGO Mindstorms offers simple building blocks for physical engineering, but offers a software experience that has no clear next steps as learners desire more sophistication.

In contrast, BlockyTalky allows users to gently progress from highly scaffolded beginner tools into more sophisticated hardware and software design and engineering practices. Learners of hardware engineering with BlockyTalky can grow from using modular, highly-encapsulated, and robust LEGO Mindstorms sensors and motors, to using the more open-ended but still modular Seed Studio Grove sensor platform, to finally designing their own custom circuits. The software trajectory grows from using a Blocks-based visual programming language, to using a carefully constrained textual domain-specific language, and then finally opening up to the full power and complexity of a general purpose programming environment. These trajectories provide room for learners’ skills to grow over time, while simultaneously not demanding that they learn the advanced skills of circuit design and a complex, general-purpose programming language in order to be productive.
My paper and presentation will summarize the current landscape of physical computing tools and their use in educational settings. Then, I will use an example of a sample student project to illustrate the lack of support by these current tools for learners’ development over time, as well as their misfit to creating the kinds of networked technologies that youth use every day. Next, I will show several strands of our BlockyTalky design and development work, illustrating how facets of the hardware and software development environment work as scaffolding, enabling gradual development of learners’ technical skills while enabling students to produce interesting products within minutes of first use. Finally, I will present two short case studies of students using BlockyTalky to design and build creative networked physical computing projects, showing how the BlockyTalky toolkit offers easy beginnings as well as room for considerable technical growth.

Author

• R. Benjamin Shapiro, University of Colorado - Boulder