The digital dream lab: tabletop puzzle blocks for exploring programmatic concepts

Tangible interaction links digital data with physical forms to support embodied use. Puzzle pieces, which their inherent physical syntax of connectable elements, provide a powerful and expressive metaphor on which to construct such tangible systems. Prior work has explored this potential in the domain of edutainment systems for children aimed at tasks such as learning logic, programming or organizational skills. Although this work is promising, it has largely focused on relatively advanced concepts and children of ages 7-12 years. The work presented in this paper adopts the same perspective but focuses on young children (5 and under) and a simpler range of concepts relating to the clustering and manipulation of data. To achieve this it presents the design (including results from a series of six formative field studies) and implementation of the Digital Dream Lab tabletop puzzle block system. This system, intended for installation in a museum, engages young children (aged 4-5) to explore simple programmatic concepts and the link between the physical and virtual world. The paper closes with design recommendations of future work targeting this goal, setting and age group.