Cobot Choreography: You Can Code!
Educational Children's Game
Transformational Games
Game Design, Children's Education, Programming, Playtesting, Research
Year:
2020
A two-player educational board game that teaches programming logic through dance choreography. Created for Player-Programmed Partner Games, this project explored how physical play and creative expression could make coding accessible to low-resource students.
Project Type: Academic Design & Research Project
Timeline: Fall 2020
Team: Elan Suder, Jane Lee, Jenny Wang, Stella Yan
Client: Player-Programmed Partner Games
Deliverables: Game prototype, playtesting sessions, theory paper, process documentation
Target Users: School-aged children from low-resource backgrounds with limited exposure to programming.
Many students, particularly girls (who comprise only 24% of computer scientists), perceive coding as difficult and inaccessible. Research shows girls are half as likely to be encouraged to explore computer science, yet students told by parents or teachers they'd be good at the subject are three times more likely to pursue it. Traditional programming education starts with screens and syntax, creating barriers…
We wanted to help children build their confidence by recognizing they already use computational thinking (sequencing, conditionals, loops) in everyday activities…. like dance!
We examined block programming tools designed for children (Blockly, Scratch, Coding for Carrots) to understand how visual, drag-and-drop interfaces make logic tangible. These tools succeed by removing typing barriers and providing immediate visual feedback, but still require screen time and feel explicitly "educational."
We explored children's physical games like Simon Says and call-and-response dances ("If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands"), recognizing that kids already understand if-then logic through play. One child's perspective guided our approach: “Computers for kids need to be fun like a friend, but can make me smart for school. They should also be friendly like my cat. The real thing is that they shouldn’t make me have to type since I don’t like that. I can talk much better!” (Role of Children).
We researched responsive collaboration between humans and machines (cobots working in tandem) and mapped how dance's universal, physical language could translate programming concepts into bodily knowledge.
Cost-benefit analysis identified restickable stickers and glossy postcards as materials that could stay under five dollars per box while enabling replayable gameplay.
Players navigate a board game by rolling dice, landing on colored spaces that determine which programming stickers they collect—yellow for action verbs (clap, spin, shake) and green for conditionals (Do this ___ times, If ___ then you ___, While you must ___).
To earn stickers, players complete mini-games like Rock-Paper-Scissors or odd-even number challenges. Using collected stickers, each player creates a dance choreography on a glossy postcard for their opponent to perform. When players land on dancing spaces, they execute the routines created for them—physically becoming the "robot" interpreting instructions.
The game teaches sequencing, conditionals, and loops without screens or syntax. Through playtesting, we balanced the board to reduce blank spaces and removed certain colored squares to ensure players received diverse stickers for creative choreography. The competitive element (mini-games, controlling your opponent's dance) keeps engagement high while the collaborative aspect (building toward shared performances) reinforces that coding is communication.
This project (and entire course, really) made me realize that I'm passionate about educational games. I still have clear memories of playing the 101 Dalmatians interactive story as a kid (it's where I learned the word 'exquisite'), and learning about leafcutter ants and beaver dams through JumpStart… but I digress.
I've been teaching kids of all ages for a few years. There's something so exciting about taking a complex, intimidating idea and figuring out the best way to communicate this idea to another person, especially when this person is a child that thinks through neural pathways so different from your own.
I greatly believe in the power of fun and gamification, even in digital designs that aren't actual games. Making an interaction fun is the best way to get a user to engage!