INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG 72 INTERACTIONS NOVEMBER–DECEMBER2017 FORUM HCI EDUCATION

We also extended the curriculum
to include programming as a tangible
experience. We introduced
participants to Makey Makey as a
way to extend their experience of
computation. What makes Makey
Makey ideal in this situation: It
functions as an extension to the
keyboard, and so by plugging the
Makey Makey into the computer, a
Coding Pirate can design and build a
physical controller for their game
without changing any code. The
arrows are standard in the Makey
Makey design, so the arrows within
the game could be directly connected
to the physically designed
controllers. By manifesting
programming as tangible interaction,
we challenged the participants to
experience programming in concrete
ways. And by introducing physical
manipulation into the world of
which tasks are designed to gradually
advance as the task is resolved [ 1]. A
plenum brainstorming activity was
done to foster creativity across all
participants, identifying game-theme
ideas. After brainstorming, each
team decided on a theme and created
an appropriate background on the
template game. All tasks during the
workshop were open-ended yet had
precise guidelines for how to proceed.

They were given instructions on
how to measure coordinates, as well as
how to move digital artifacts on the
screen to identify the correct
placement according to the theme. As
the workshop continued, further
functionality such as sound and
“coding blocks” was touched on, and
participants were then asked to edit
their games accordingly. For example,
they were asked to create an “enemy”
that matched their theme, which, when
clicked on, would remove points from
the player. All teams managed to create
a fully working game, which they
showcased to each other at the end of
the workshop (Figure 2). All teams
went through the complete curriculum.

Programming as tangible interaction. We wanted to increase the complexity of the curriculum by asking participants to alter not only the game design but also the functionality, by adding motion through dynamic modifications. In the second workshop, we invited 10 new participants. Instead of providing only the game template, we added three arrow buttons to the template (up, left, and right), with a missing down arrow. After deciding on the theme, background, and so on, participants were asked to create the missing arrow by exploring the code from the other arrows, creating modifications within the coding script.

Figure 1. Introducing pair programming using yellow and black hats to represent drivers and navigators.

Figure 2. Students developing their games. From left: UFO game, Maze game, Xmas game.