Making physical and digital games with e-textiles: a workshop for youth making responsive wearable games and controllers

Most research on game making has been limited to digital games, not including the design of physical peripherals and controllers. In this paper, we illustrate how youth created wearable and physically interactive controllers by combining digital and tangible construction kits such as Scratch, ModKit, MaKey MaKey, and Lilypad Arduino. In an eight-session workshop, 1415-year-old youth coded and created their own Scratch games and created wearable or electronic textile-based bidirectionally responsive game controllers, using sensors to activate a response on the screen, through the physical artifact, or both interfaces. We analyzed students’ design of game controllers, as well as postworkshop interviews, to understand how they articulated an understanding of bidirectionally responsive design and its affordances, focusing on a case study. In the discussion we address some of the insights and challenges presented through the workshop, and offer suggestions for future work. Categories and...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: ACMIDC
• Authors: Gabriela T. Richard, Yasmin B. Kafai
• Keywords: ACMIDC 2015, Human Computer Interaction