EASY ROBOTICS WITH CAMERA DEVICES AND TANGIBLE TILES

Schools are trying to teach programming at an earlier age, particularly using robots, but there are some difficulties, namely the cost for the schools and the abstractness for the students. We present the tangible system Tactode for young students to program robots in the classroom, using handheld camera devices. The system was tested with a focus group of students between 10 and 12 years old, who were asked to solve a maze using the Ozobot Evo robot. The students were able to complete the task with minimal help and reported that they enjoyed the experiment and were interested in further exploration. Most students found the language easy to use, with only 9% declaring it somewhat difficult. Regarding the application, all students found it simple, but the second group clearly had trouble with obtaining photographs without reflection. Also, in conversation, the students complained about the cumbersome process of transferring the code to the robot. We consider these early results encouraging as well as informative for future developments.