Paper Reading 5 - Tangible Video Bubbles

Comments
Patrick Frith
Paola Garza

Reference Information
Tangible Video Bubbles
 - Kimiko Ryokai, Hayes Raffle, Hiroshi Horii, and Yotam Mann
 - CHI 2010, Atlanta, Georgia

Summary
Tangible Video Bubbles are devices that the writers designed for use with children.  They are large squishy spheres that contain a hole for the children to look into.  Inside is a mirror so the children can see what they look like, as well as a webcam to capture and record what they say and do.  Manipulating the bubble by squeezing it as well as using the provided canvas allowed the children to express themselves in new ways.

The writers pointed out that the younger children they were working with are quite capable of multitasking in different forms of creativity.  The goal of this project was to monitor the children with the tangible video bubbles and see how each one went about discovering it and all of its features.  They revealed that they collected very interesting data, and they plan to further develop the device to gain more insight into the mind of a developing child.

Squeezing all the fun...out of video editing.

Discussion
If I were a kid with one of these, I would have spent hours and hours and hours playing around with its different features.  I’d probably have a blast messing with it even now.  Anyway, you always hear about children being capable of picking up a new language with little to no effort, or picking up an instrument and learning it quite rapidly.  I think these tangible video bubbles are perfect for children of this age to have, because I can see it expanding the way they view things.

Many of the concepts of this device are extremely abstract compared to normal technology and being exposed to these more abstract ways of thinking and problem solving seems like they would open up the child’s mind quite a bit.  I can see this kind of research eventually helping children to understand concepts that took us years to grasp.  Just imagine a bunch of 12-year-olds with an advanced understanding of computers and programming and what they could accomplish by the time they are our age.  I think that would be incredible, so I hope there is a lot more research done like the tangible video bubbles.