Building Arduino-Based Tangible Serious Games for Elementary Mathematics and Physics

This paper concerns the development of new tangible game tools for learning basic mathematic concepts. The prototypes can be easily implemented by exploiting new open source electronic hardware technologies, such as Arduino and related sensors and actuators, combing simplicity, wide diffusion and low cost. Two simple proof of concepts are presented. First, a music game, in which children collaborate to create a melody composed by different sounds controllable by changing the hand’s distance in a theremin-like approach. The second project intends addressing the concepts of distance and alignment. In both cases, they are not closed-box fully automatic games, but tools freely usable by an educator (e.g., a teacher or a parent) with children. The experience shows that several alternative configurations are easily implemented, calling for the possibility of developing a hardware/software component library for development/assembly of various types of tangible games also by non experts.