Towards playful learning and computational thinking — Developing the educational robot BRICKO

Educational Robotics has proven a feasible way of supporting and exemplifying Computational Thinking. With this paper, we describe the user-centered iterative and incremental development of a new educational robotic system, BRICKO, to support tangible, social and playful interaction while educating children in 1st–3rd grade in Computational Thinking. We develop the system through seven main iterations including a total of 108 participant pupils and their teachers. The methodology is a mixture of observation and interviews using Wizard of OZ testing with the early pilot prototypes as well as usability and user experience testing with the following incrementally improved digital prototypes. Our results for development and evaluation are presented for each iteration leading onto the next and describes the evolution of both the BRICKO driving robot as well as the BRICKO programming-board and its different categories of command-bricks. We discuss the methodologies used for assuring a playful and social educational robotic system and conclude that we achieved a useful prototype for supporting education in Computational Thinking.