Active Learning Environments with Robotic Tangibles (ALERT) are mixed reality video gaming systems that use sensors, vision systems, and robots to provide an engaging experience that may motivate hitherto underrepresented kinds of learners to become interested in game design, programming, and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Through the use of fiducials (i.e., meaningful markers) recognized by robots through computer vision as just-in-time instructions, users engage in spatially-based programming without the encumbrances of traditional procedural programs' syntax and structure. Since humans, robots, and video environments share many inherently spatial qualities, this natural style of physical programming is particularly well suited to fostering playful interactions with mobile robots in dynamic video environments. As these systems broaden the capabilities of video game technology and human-robot interaction (HRI) they are lowering many existing barriers to integrated videorobot game development and programming. Diverse ALERT video game scenarios and applications are enabling a broad range of gamers, learners, and developers to generate and engage in their own physically interactive games.
This research paper reports on a series of undergraduate workshops that tested the LEGO ® SERIOUS PLAY ® (LSP) method for facilitating deliberation in multidisciplinary teams of students considering the social, ethical, and environmental implications of nanotechnology. As a wicked problem, nanotechnology warrants thorough examination and deliberation involving multiple stakeholders to ensure responsible innovation and governance. However, many conventional approaches to wicked problems fail to address the difficulty of cross-disciplinary communication in the absence of interactional expertise, and overlook proven creative problem solving methods. Despite nearly five decades of maturation in practices since the term 'wicked problems' first appeared in the literature in 1967, a need remains for exploring new approaches. LSP is a content neutral, hands-on facilitation method using boundary objects as a metaphorical vehicle for lowering the barriers to communication, thereby building empathetic perspective taking and increasing the "collision" of ideas to boost the collective creativity. The curriculum effectiveness and student experience was evaluated through pre-and post-surveys as well as summative focus group sessions. Findings show that the LSP method was useful in three respects: 1) it accelerated the socialization process essential for generating and sharing creative ideas by structuring interactions with material boundary objects, 2) it enabled students to externalize their ideas and perspectives in more explicit forms through the use of material metaphors, and 3), it facilitated the internalization of new knowledge.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.