Imagine overturning a container of nuts and bolts, then looking through the resulting pile for a particular item. Or spreading photos out on a tabletop and then beginning to sort them into piles. During these activities we interact with large numbers of small objects at the same time, and they utilize all of our fingers and both hands together. We humans are skilled at using our hands in these ways, and can effortlessly sift and sort – focusing on our higher level goals rather than the items themselves.
MIT’s Media Lab grad student David Merrill demos Siftables — cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?
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[...] our understanding of physical materials. He focus on his most ambitious project and Ph.D. topic, Siftables, a tangible interaction platform that gives physical embodiment to information and digital media [...]
[...] of physical materials. He focus on his most ambitious project and Ph.D. topic, Siftables, a tangible interaction platform that gives physical embodiment to [...]