Grand Illusions: Large-Scale Optical Toys and Contemporary Scientific Spectacle

Nineteenth-century optical toys that showcase illusions of motion such as the phenakistoscope, zoetrope, and praxinoscope, have enjoyed active “afterlives” in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Contemporary incarnations of the zoetrope are frequently found in the realms of fine art and advertising, and they are often much larger than their nineteenth-century counterparts. This article argues that modern-day optical toys are able to conjure feelings of wonder and spectacle equivalent to their nineteenth-century antecedents because of their adjustment in scale. Exploring a range of contemporary philosophical toys found in arts, entertainment, and advertising contexts, the article discusses various technical adjustments made to successfully “scale up” optical toys, including the replacement of hand-spun mechanisms with larger sources of motion and the use of various means such as architectural features and stroboscopic lights to replace traditional shutter mechanisms such as the zoetrope’s dark slots. Critical consideration of scale as a central feature of these installations reconfigures the relationship between audience and device. Large-scale adaptations of optical toys revise the traditional conception of the user, who is able to tactilely manipulate and interact with the apparatus, instead positing a viewer who has less control over the illusion’s operation and is instead a captive audience surrounded by the animation. It is primarily through their adaptation of scale that contemporary zoetropes successfully elicit wonder as scientific spectacles from their audiences today

Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

Automatically Adapting Home Lighting to Assist Visually Impaired Children

For visually impaired children, activities like finding everyday items, locating favourite toys and moving around the home can be challenging. Assisting them during these activities is important because it promotes independence and encourages them to use and develop their remaining visual function. We describe our work towards a system that adapts the lighting conditions at home to help visually impaired children with everyday tasks. We discuss scenarios that show how they may benefit from adaptive lighting, report on our progress and describe our planned future work and evaluation

Seven myths about young children and technology

Parents and educators tend to have many questions about young children's play with computers and other technologies at home. They can find it difficult to know what is best for children because these toys and products were not around when they were young. Some will tell you that children have an affinity for technology that will be valuable in their future lives. Others think that children should not be playing with technology when they could be playing outside or reading a book

Towards a Multimodal Adaptive Lighting System for Visually Impaired Children

Visually impaired children often have difficulty with everyday activities like locating items, e.g. favourite toys, and moving safely around the home. It is important to assist them during activities like these because it can promote independence from adults and helps to develop skills. Our demonstration shows our work towards a multimodal sensing and output system that adapts the lighting conditions at home to help visually impaired children with such tasks

How do you Play with a Robotic Toy Animal? A long-term study of Pleo

Pleo is one of the more advanced interactive toys currently available for the home market, taking the form of a robotic dinosaur. We present an exploratory study of how it was interacted with and reflected upon in the homes of six families during 2 to 10 months. Our analysis emphasizes a discrepancy between the participants’ initial desires to borrow a Pleo and what they reported later on about their actual experiences. Further, the data suggests an apparent tension between participants expecting the robot to work as a ‘toy’ while making consistent comparisons with real pet animals. We end by discussing a series of implications for design of this category of toys, in order to better maintain interest and engagement over time

Developing downloadable TUIs for online pedagogic activities

The Web has changed how we interact with the World’s information and knowledge. As a result there have been several changes to the education sector, especially in online distance learning. Nevertheless, most of the e-Learning activities struggle to break the GUI paradigm. The HCI community has focused on the use of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) for pedagogic purposes thus producing some evidence of the potential that embodied cognition might bring to constructivist learning. New education movements such as the Edupunk movement argue for an empowerment of independent learners, following the constructivist perspective where learners have to have a more active role by experimenting and discovering concepts on their own. However, we think that accessing TUI systems via Web can lead to pedagogic activities that break the GUI paradigm in education on the Web. This paper presents a case study: three prototypes of TUIs for online learning and exploration were developed and tested, investigating the usability and engagement provided by this kind of interactive tools. <br/

Education and development in early childhood in two portuguese cultural contexts: the mainland and Azores

The various aspects of a child’s development (physical, psychological, emotional, relational, cognitive, linguistic, perceptive, and motor), as well as the child’s needs and attitudes, are key throughout his/her life and have been studied over the years by various researchers. We will examine the similarities and differences observed in the education and stimulation of children in two cultural contexts: on the Portuguese mainland (Lisbon, Almada, Santarém, Almeirim, and Portalegre regions) and Azorean islands (São Miguel, Pico, and Terceira). Our research focussed on children’s upbringing and development in the following areas: food and hygiene; cognitive and linguistic development; perceptual and motor development; emotional and relational development; sleep; and play and childcare practices. We identify several aspects that contribute to children’s positive physical and psychological development in the first two years of life, both on the mainland and in the Azores, examining aspects, such as sensory stimulation, sleep, types of play, and toys.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio