Designing for the Internet of Things

(^128) | dEsiGninG for EMErGinG tECHnoLoGiEs
I can’t help but wonder what happens when ordinary, physical objects,
such as the sandpaper letters or counting beads of my youth, become
endowed with digital properties? How far off is a future in which ordi-
nary learning becomes endowed with digital capabilities?
THINKING WITH THINGS, TODAY!
Whereas much of this is conjecture, there are a handful of organiza-
tions exploring some basic ways to make learning both tangible and
digital.
Sifteo Cubes
The most popular of these technologies is, of course, the Sifteo Cubes
(see Figure 5 - 5 ). Announced at the February 2009 TED conference,
these “toy tiles that talk to each other” have opened the doors to new
kinds of play and interaction. Each cube, aside from having a touch-
screen, has the added ability to interact with other cubes based on its
proximity to a neighboring cube, cube configurations, rotation, and
even orientation and gesture. In various games, players essentially
reposition blocks to create mazes, roll a (virtual) ball into the next
block, and do any number of other things accomplished by interact-
ing with these blocks the way you would dominoes. They’ve been aptly
described as “alphabet blocks with an app store.” Commenting on what
Sifteo Cubes represent, founder Dave Merrill has said “What you can
expect to see going forward are physical games that really push in the
direction of social play.”
Motion Math
Similar to Sifteo Cubes, in that interaction comes through motion, is
the fractions game Motion Math (Figure 5 - 5 ). This simple app for the
iPhone and Android uses the accelerometer to teach fractions. Rather
than tapping the correct answer or hitting a submit button, as you
would with other math software, players tilt their devices left or right to
direct a bouncing ball to the spot correctly matching the identified frac-
tion; you learn fractions using hand-eye coordination and your body (or
at least your forearm). And, rather than an “incorrect” response, the
feedback loop of a bouncing ball allows you to playfully guide your ball
to the correct spot.