Mechanix: an interactive display for exploring engineering design through a tangible interface

Authors:
Tiffany Tseng;Coram Bryant;Paulo Blikstein
Affiliations:
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA;Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA;Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction
Year:
2010

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Abstract

Mechanix is a low-cost, interactive system for children to design and explore mechanical systems using computer-vision tracked, magnetic components. It employs a semi-transparent magnetic surface that supports the placement and tracking of magnetic simple machine pieces and acts as a projection screen. A back-mounted webcam captures the position of the pieces using visual tags, while a projector depicts virtual components in user-generated challenges and solutions. Designed as a museum exhibit and grounded in constructionist learning theory, Mechanix combines a virtual library of user-generated content with a tangible interface to enable asynchronous and synchronous interactions.