THYMIO
PROGRAMMING
A D V E N T U R E
Real and digital world combined
in a unique gamified learning
experience involving robotics
and augmented reality
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
SUMMARY
At Maker Faire in Rome children will be able to experiment a unique game
combining robotics and augmented reality into an incomparable gamified
learning experience to discover programming.
The use of the Thymio
robot combined with
the tablet allows interactions through the
game that has never
been explored.
Using an Android tablet and an open source Visual Programming Interface,
kids will have to solve increasingly complex puzzles by programming the
educational robot Thymio, making it interacting with tangible 3D markers
that create a virtual world through the tablet.
Throughout the story, the player helps Thymio get back to earth from a parallel fantastic world. This give kids a sense of attachment to the robot as a
motivation for creativity.
The player progresses in the story by fulfilling missions and acquiring programming features.
Players interact not only through the digital world but also with tangible markers that are detected both by the robot and the tablet.
The game even reacts according to the user’s movements. Virtual and real
world are then blended seamlessly into a rich gaming experience.
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
GOAL
We want to show that learning programming can be intuitive, fun and accessible to anyone, even for a
6 year old. Thanks to a powerful yet easy-to-use interface and the first mix between tangible interactive robot and Augmented Reality, we created a unique gamified learning experience to discover
programming.
VA LU E
This project will
provide a fully
open-source AR
library, that is using
state-of-the-art
techniques.
The project is based on open source educational robots designed and produced from the ground up with the goal to support teaching and inspire the
students starting from the early age (6+). The Thymio project is already well
implanted as well in schools as among families. Today, we add a completely
new brick to this adventure by connecting it to the Augmented Reality universe. Children now have a much more powerful tool to visualise and understand
what programming means.
Being open source, the project has the potential to attract developers, researchers and be implemented at low cost by the educational agencies, associations and families worldwide.
S O C I A L I M PAC T
15’000 Thymio robots are already spread around
the world. Half of them are in schools and are
used to teach programming, to raise awareness
of children towards technology or to trigger
scientific curiosity and reflexion. The other half
has been bought by families willing to discover
programming, to give children the right tools to
understand the world in which they live and to
spend quality time between adults and children,
learning from each others.
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
Through THYMIO PROGRAMMING ADVENTURE, we
will bring a unique combination of adventure,
problem solving and learning programming as
a breathtaking tutorial. By providing interactions
between players, this project will develop sociality in children. In summary, this project will
stimulate hard skills and soft skills, helping children to become better actors of our digital world.
PROJECT
All programming
blocks are also
accessible in a
free-play mode
where kids can
express their
creativity without limits.
The project is composed of a tangible robot, an Augmented Reality universe and an app binding them together .
Thymio is a small programmable robot developed for education. Its goal
is to allow everyone, whatever their age, to understand programming. By
bringing a tangible reaction to an abstract program, it serves as an anchor
in the real world and facilitate the understanding of programming concepts. Moreover, it is a proven strong motivation tool. Let it on a table for a
minute, everyone’s curiosity will be tickled.
We created an Augmented Reality universe with two goals: creating a
gamified experience and developing tools to help understanding programming. Indeed, it’s easy to use AR to display intern state of the robot
or even the real-time execution of a program, allowing the core concepts of
programming to be better understood by the users.
These two universes are bound together thanks to an intuitive Android
app. Based on the successful Visual Programming Language of Thymio
(VPL), this new app unlocks a new level of complexity in a very accessible
way. Each function block will be progressively unlocked during the missions
and bonus blocks can be obtained as achievements.
EVENTS/
SENSORS
FINITE
STATE
MACHINE
ACTIONS/
ACTUATORS
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
STORY
Levigo, the fantastic virtual world
The game is setup on a parallel levitating world called
Levigo.
It is made of islands floating on gas geysers, showing a
variety of environments mixing technology and nature.
A code virus has spread all over this world causing
machines to malfunction. Sentient creatures evolved in
Levigo and learnt how to use them.
One of these creatures, Ada, becomes Thymio companion
helping it through its quest.
Levigo has been built using an open source engine for
Augmented Reality developed during this project.
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
ADA
CHARACTER
SOCIAL HUMAN
INTERACTION
Together with creativity and fun, the game provides also
support for safe social interaction. Kids will be able to share
their own programs and function blocks with their friends.
They can also take snapshots of Thymio during the missions in
the fantastic world of Levigo, creating a journal of their quest and
bringing it back to earth!
VISUAL
PROGRAM
& SNAPSHOT
SHARING
MEASURE
O F I M PAC T
The Thymio project is open-source and gather a great community of users, developers, schools
and researchers. The community already studied the impact of the educational aspects of the
project through research papers and will continue to do so. The projects linked to schools, such
as the book “1, 2, 3… codez !” from the fondation “La main à la pâte”, are great opportunities to
gather feedback from teachers and to measure the impact of the Thymio project. We will
continue conducting projects in this domain to make sure that Thymio really brings something to
the society.
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
B AC KG R O U N D
Thymio is a small educational robot designed for children by EPFL, ETHZ, écal and
Mobsya.
Thymio is the result of several iterations of
development and tests with thousands of
children since 2010.
Then, a community of partners such as INIRIA Bordeaux, Weizmann Institute of Science
or the fundation “La main à la pâte” brought
their help in the creation of educational material or software upgrades.
Thymio is the heart of a community of
teachers, families, fans and research
centers. Dozens of scientific studies have
been done, validating its educational benefits.
T E C H N I C A L D E TA I L S
Thymio is extremely rich in terms of sensors and actuators. Infrared proximity sensors, 3-axis
accelerometer, touch buttons, motors, 39 LED and more. It is also extremely robust and resists to
fall. It has been designed to be used by children.
1
SENSORS
2
ACTUATORS
ACCESSORIES
2
1
1
CAPACITIVE TOUCH BOTTONS (5)
1
SPEAKER
2
BATTERY LEVEL LI-PO
2
39 LED
3
PROXIMITY SENSORS (2-BACK)
4
MICROPHONE
5
INFRARED REMOTE CONTROL RECEIVER
6
THREE AXIS ACCELEROMETER
7
PROXIMITY SENSORS (5-FRONT)
8
GROUND SENSORS (2-FRONT)
9
TEMPERATURE SENSOR
3
WIRELESS INTERIOR
MODULE (OPT.)
3
2
PENCIL SUPPORT
3
MICRO USB CONNECTION
4
MEMORY CARD SLOT
1
SPEED CONTROLLED
WHEELS (2)
1
1
4
3
2
1
8
5
2
1
5
HOOK FOR TRAILER3
6
4
LEGO© ATTACHMENT
7
RESET BUTTON
3
5
8
USB
WIRELESS
(OPT.)
8
1
2
4
2
1
6
5
1
3
6
6
4
6
3
7
7
5
9
3
4
5
6
2
8
6
7
8
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
6
7
7
9
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ASEBA
Aseba is an open-source software framework designed to enable novices to program robots easily.
It is composed of a Visual Programming Language, a Blockly® IDE and a script-based programming language. Aseba and Thymio evolve with the child, allowing her-him to always go further
into programming concepts.
The programming interface designed for THYMIO PROGRAMMING ADVENTURE is inspired by those
which compose Aseba but brings a new horizon of possibilities with easy-to-program state machines.
Visual
Programming
Language
Blockly® IDE
Script-based
programming
language
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
3D AUGMENTED
REALITY ENGINE
For this project, we developped an open-source AR tracking library for natural markers and
Thymio tracker, that we hooked into Qt3D to provide a full AR experience.
R E S S O U R C E S I N V O LV E D
& EFFORT SPENT
In order to create THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE, we invested 4 wo-man years
of effort with a team composed of:
A Post-doc computer scientist as project
leader (0.9)
A digital artist (0.8)
An interaction designer (0.5)
A research engineer (0.5)
A Post-doc specialised in Augmented Reality
(1)
An engineer on the Mobsya side (0.3)
This effort doesn’t count hours of reviews by
advisors and consultants in game design or
from leading universities.
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
What we need to make the next step
We are looking for partners and supporters
to help us transforming this project into a
product. This means completing all levels of
the game, implementing more blocks including AR ones, adding a simple mode to the
programming interface, adding vanity blocks
to improve gamification, programing social
features, testing and validating that the system works on a broad range of platforms.
Maker Faire Rome 2016 will be the first
world wide stage for this unique project.
ECONOMIC
S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y
Thymio programming adventure is an open-source project. It is currently in heavy technical
development and is lead by Stéphane Magnenat. The future development of this project relies on
different partners such as the Thymio community, EPFL, ETHZ and Mobsya. Every partner will
bring a contribution in terms of development, industrialisation, testing or funding.
Mobsya association is the entity that manages the industrial and commercial aspects of
the Thymio project. Its role inside the community is to bring good quality product to
Thymio users through a network of international distributors.
Mobsya currently employs 6 people. It was
born in 2010 and sold the very first Thymio
robot in 2011. Since then, and with a strong
acceleration since the summer 2014, Mobsya sold 15’000 Thymio robots and accessories.
Mobsya currently co-develops new products such as the Wireless Thymio that came
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THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
on the market in February 2016, allowing
people to program Thymio without having
to plug a USB cable and an activity kit, following a measured market need. THYMIO
PROGRAMMING ADVENTURE will bring
a unique product on the market and will
be promoted, produced and distributed by
Mobsya.
The business model around this project will
consist of selling the robots and accessories
such as 2 or 3D markers that will include
new Augmented Reality features. Moreover, Augmented Reality objects, animations
and games could be sold directly through
the app.
TEAM
A team of skilled engineers, talented artists and education experts has been gathered to bring
this experience to reality. Born at the Robotics Lab at EPFL where the Thymio robot was conceived, our multidisciplinary team is currently working on the development of the game.
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Stéphane
Magnenat
Project leader
Martin
Voelkle
Software engineer
Ramiz
Morina
Digital artist
Maria María
Beltran
UX & game design
Ph.D. in Mobile
Robotics. Founder
of Mobsya,
producing Thymio.
His research
focuses on
computer-science
education among
others.
Software
craftsman with a
M.Sc in Computer
Science. Founder
of Sampla,
a consulting
programming
company.
Master in Game
Art and illustration,
his skills range
from 2d drawing
to 3d modelling,
texturing and
animation in the
context of video
games and comics.
Interaction
designer, she
specializes in
user experiences
mixing digital and
tangible worlds.
Christophe
Barraud
Marketing
& Scriptwriting
Amaury
Dame
Vision expert
Pablo Márquez
Neila
Vision expert
Master in
Microengineering
with specialization
in robotics. CEO
of Mobsya and
independent
writer.
Ph.D. in computer
vision and
autonomous
robotics, his
research now also
focus on machine
learning.
Ph.D. in Artificial
Intelligence
specialised in
Computer Vision.
Currently working
as a post-doctoral
researcher in
CVLab at EPFL.
THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
TEAM
Advisors and consultants
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Michael
Huber
Storytelling and
gamification
advisor
Francesco
Mondada
Scientific
Advisor
Moti
Ben-Ari
Education
consultant
Morgane
Chevalier
Education
consultant
With a prolific
background in
feature films, his
stories all share a
wit and a magical
touch that blur the
lines of reality and
fantasy.
PhD. Professor
at the Robotic
Systems
Laboratory of
EPFL. Author of
more than 100
publications in the
field of robotics.
Professor in the
Department of
Science
Teaching of
the Weizmann
Institute of
Science. He
received the
ACM/SIGCSE
Award for
Outstanding
Contributions to
Computer Science
Education.
Teacher and
specialist in
multimedia
educational
engineering.
Conducting a
PHD thesis about
acceptation and
usage of robots by
teachers.
THYMIO PROGRAMMING
ADVENTURE
BRINGING YOU
ROBOTS FOR
EDUCATION
Stéphane Magnenat
[email protected]
EPFL - STI - IMT - LSRO
Station 9
CH-1015 Lausanne
Switzerland
Association Mobsya
[email protected]
Chemin du Closel 5
1020 Renens
Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0)32 511 64 93