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LINKKI: A planar linkage-based kinetic toy as a tool for education and design

Published: 14 October 2016 Publication History

Abstract

This paper presents LINKKI, a kinetic construction toy based on a planar linkage mechanism with which users can design movements, make kinetic arts, and learn basic STEM subjects through hands-on play. Consisting of a modular box, bars and circles, and active/interactive modules, LINKKI simplifies the technical construction toy to such an extent as to look minimal but still retains the versatility of construction blocks as an educational tool and designer's prototyping tool.
The simplicity of LINKKI not only allows intuitive play, but also enables users to easily tweak and create custom parts for themselves, thus making it easy to incorporate raw material in addition to the existing parts for prototyping use. Paying attention to the aesthetic side, it is also intended to encourage a demographic with possibly less exposure to technical toys (casual users, young girls, etc.) to be engaged in motion design and STEM subjects. In this paper, I describe the features of a functioning LINKKI prototype and discuss the adaptability of the toy through diverse usage examples and a user study.

References

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Cited By

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  • (2023)AutomataStage: an AR-mediated Creativity Support Tool for Hands-on Multidisciplinary LearningProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581408(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
  • (2022)Imagine a Move in Space6th FabLearn Europe / MakeEd Conference 202210.1145/3535227.3535246(1-3)Online publication date: 30-May-2022
  • (2020)WIKA: A Projected Augmented Reality Workbench for Interactive Kinetic ArtProceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3379337.3415880(999-1009)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2020
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  1. LINKKI: A planar linkage-based kinetic toy as a tool for education and design

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      cover image ACM Other conferences
      FabLearn '16: Proceedings of the 6th Annual Conference on Creativity and Fabrication in Education
      October 2016
      120 pages
      ISBN:9781450348027
      DOI:10.1145/3003397
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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      • Stanford University: Stanford University

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 14 October 2016

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      Author Tags

      1. Construction toy
      2. STEAM education
      3. kinetic design
      4. manipulative
      5. prototyping
      6. robotics
      7. tangible interface

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      • Short-paper
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      • Refereed limited

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      FabLearn '16

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      FabLearn '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 8 of 19 submissions, 42%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 14 of 35 submissions, 40%

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      Cited By

      View all
      • (2023)AutomataStage: an AR-mediated Creativity Support Tool for Hands-on Multidisciplinary LearningProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581408(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
      • (2022)Imagine a Move in Space6th FabLearn Europe / MakeEd Conference 202210.1145/3535227.3535246(1-3)Online publication date: 30-May-2022
      • (2020)WIKA: A Projected Augmented Reality Workbench for Interactive Kinetic ArtProceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3379337.3415880(999-1009)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2020
      • (2020)Design of a STEM Education Product "AMIGO"2020 International Conference on Innovation Design and Digital Technology (ICIDDT)10.1109/ICIDDT52279.2020.00010(10-16)Online publication date: Dec-2020
      • (2020)Research on the Design of Intelligent Interactive Toys Based on Marker EducationHCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Papers: Cognition, Learning and Games10.1007/978-3-030-60128-7_35(462-471)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2020

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