The cubes: A tangible game-based learning system

Tangible Computing is coined as the interaction of computer technologies with human motions to create a new genre of learning and teaching methods. It is a type of interactive design which takes advantage of haptic human interaction skills by giving physical form to digital information. Using our hands and physical motions in a tangible environment, we can interact with complex technologies and witness their effect on our peripheral senses. A lot of research has been done on tangible computing in the past, but our primary focus in this paper is to highlight the difference in student motivation and performance when both tangible and traditional learning methods are considered. A WiMAX Cell Design Game using the ZigBee toolkit was developed as an application of tangible game based learning system. The game uses hands-on cubes to study and present the signal propagation using the Erceg model to the students. The effectiveness of the game toolkit was studied by asking ten undergraduate students to play the game, and a discussion of their feedback is provided.