Sempere, A. (2005). Animatronics, Children and Computation. Educational Technology & Society, 8 (4), 11-21.


Animatronics, Children and Computation

Andrew Sempere

Grassroots Invention Group, MIT, 29 Bates Road, Floor 2, Watertown MA, 02472 USA, andrew@media.mit.edu

 

ABSTRACT: In this article, we present CTRL_SPACE: a design for a software environment with companion hardware, developed to introduce preliterate children to basic computational concepts by means of an animatronic face, whose individual features serve as an analogy for a programmable object. In addition to presenting the environment, this article briefly discusses the reasons and methods used to reach a set of guidelines, which were in turn used to develop the prototype system that CTRL_SPACE is based on.

Keywords: Programming, Children, Animatronics, Developmental framework, Computational Objects

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