Tangible gimmick for programming education using RFID systems

We developed programming tools which has a tangible user interface. One is P-CUBE and another is Pro-Tan. People who are inexperienced in operation a personal computer including visual impairments can learn fundamental concepts of programming by using these tools, since users are able to make a program only by positioning cards or blocks on a board without operating PC's interfaces. These tools utilize radio frequency identification (RFID) tags alone for detecting the position of cards or blocks, and thus require no precision equipment such as microcomputers. These are robust for rough operation of children by such a simple mechanism. Furthermore, since programming blocks of P-CUBE has tactile information for discriminating block types, visual impairments are able to make a program without supports. In this paper, we report on the system configuration of P-CUBE and Pro-Tan and effectiveness of thise tangible programming tools. In addition, we evaluate advantages of using thus tangible programming tools, and analyze the characteristic of these tools as a gimmick of programming education.