ABBOT: a smart toy motivating children to become outdoor explorers

Abstract

This article illustrates ABBOT, a pervasive interactive game for children at the early years of primary school that aims to stimulate exploration of outdoor environments. ABBOT combines a smart tangible object to play outdoors, with a mobile app to access new content related to the discovered natural elements. The tangible object helps children capture images of the elements they find interesting in the physical environment. Through simple interactive games on a tablet, at home children can continue to interact with the collected digital materials and can also access new related content. The article illustrates the design of ABBOT; it also reports on an exploratory study with 160 kids of a preschool and a primary school that helped us assess the attitude of kids towards the game.