iTheater Puppets Tangible Interactions for Storytelling

In this paper we present preliminary work on iTheater, an interactive integrated system for story-creation and storytelling, dedicated to young children. Based on the analogy with hand puppets’ theatre, the system aims to create an interactive environment where children will be able to give life to their imaginary characters by creating, editing and recording computer animations in a simple and exciting way, through the movement and tactile manipulation of traditional hand puppets. The system merges the familiarity of use of physical objects with the engaging richness of expression of sounds, images and animations. The iTheater is conceived as a creative flexible toolkit to create and tell stories, taking advantage of the new opportunities based on the multimedia and interactive technologies.

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