BPC-DP:Robot Diaries: Co-design of creative technology and middle school curriculum

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Carnegie Mellon University proposes a project, called Robot Diaries, that aims to attract and engage a new group of middle school students in computing. With Robot Diaries, students use familiar materials along with motors, lights, and computation to design affective, programmable, tangible communication devices. They animate their creations with emotional expression in the context of collaborative storytelling. Robot Diaries motivates middle-school aged children to engage with technology as creators and authors rather than simply as consumers, and it increases students? confidence in their ability to be creative with technology. This proposal builds on three years of pilot Robot Diaries projects that included multiple rounds of participatory design with students and teachers, and a preliminary analysis of the impact of this program on learning and self-confidence. With this proposal, the audience for Robot Diaries will be significantly expanded ? with an emphasis on girls and underrepresented minorities ? through collaboration with the Pittsburgh public school system and schools in the suburban and rural regions of southwestern Pennsylvania. The project will create and deploy its new curriculum through co-design with local teachers.