Touch Wire

Abstract

This paper presents Touch Wire, a learning environment for teaching the basics of electricity and electronic design to young children. Touch Wire combines a digital touch screen interface with tangible components to bring the concepts of electronic circuitry to the forefront, while removing the tedium of tasks such as wiring for young children. Grounded in constructivist theories of learning, Touch Wire will overlay information about the underlying electrical mechanics on the tablet interface to scaffold children's learning of electronics. Our demonstrations have given us insight into how to best move forward developing the blended tangible and graphical interfaces of Touch Wire to both enhance the fun experience for children and support their learning of electronic circuitry.