AgentCubes: Enabling 3D Creativity by Addressing Cognitive and Affective Programming Challenges

Abstract

Abstract: Computational thinking has been identified as an essential 21st century skill. Unfortunately, many computer users, particularly children, consider programming to be hard and boring. There are two fundamental barriers to making programming more appealing: cognitive challenges to overcoming the hard part, and affective challenges to overcoming the boring part. AgentCubes is a new 3D creativity tool that addresses both barriers. AgentCubes addresses cognitive challenges by advancing beyond current drag and drop programming approaches that are limited to syntactic support. Instead, AgentCubes provides semantic support that helps users in fully comprehend and debug their programs. AgentCubes addressed affective challenges by including innovative 3D authoring mechanisms that let users create their own exciting 3D models and worlds. AgentCubes lets users share their creations as HTML5 web applications without needing Java or Flash.