Research Paper:Presentation.md



Translating kindergarteners’ creative expressions into engineering specifications to design paper boats.

Tables of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Literature Review
Equipment and Methodology
Experimental Procedure
Results and Discussion
Conclusions
References and Citations


1. Abstract
– A 200-300 word non-technical summary of your research project.
– Questions to answer:
GUI -> RoCo -> Paper Boat
5 -> Creative Expressions = Engineering Specifications -> GUI
• What is the research problem and why is it important?
There are a vast amount of educational engineering kits for students in high school and college, these kits expose students to basic design, engineering, and programming concepts. But when the age group is students in primary school, the options are limited and expensive. How can we expose young children to engineering skills with little and inexpensive kits, and make sure the kits are targeted and usable for those in primary school?
A majority of students are initially exposed to STEM during their time in high school, and college. There a large amount of kits, ranging in price and complexity, that introduce students to basic design, engineering, and programming concepts. What if we could expose students to these concepts earlier?
Our goal to introduce STEM to children at an earlier age brought us to a robotic foldable boat, aka a Paper Boat. Without electrical, mechanical, and software components, only a sheet of paper is required to create a functional paper boat. This one material is widely available throughout the entire world.
We to create options for children, as young as five years old, to begin dabbling in STEM. Requirements for this project to be a success are: low cost, accessible supplies, usable for all ages, and limitless design ideas.

• What did you do and why?
I spent the past nine weeks doing research on children's technology design principles. When a software or tech designer wants to make an application or tool for children, they change arbitary things that we believe will make the application/tool more usable to children. But in reality there are actual design principles software and tech designers should be aware of that will allow children to express their creativity and explore their imagination (change). I went throught literature review on children's technology, their input, and specific design principles. After I created an experimental procedure to best observe and interview children when drawing a boat, using computer and table apps and games, and drawing a boat on a computer and tablet application. This was done to best understand and move on to designing a GUI for children to use when designing a foldable paper boat.
• What did you find?
• What do your findings mean?

2. Introduction
– Address the topic in the first sentence
– Introduce the topic by means of an example to illustrate theoretical
points
– Outline your general argument and your paper

3. Literature Review
	– A discussion of findings from other researchers
	– Critical apparaisal of other’s theories
		• You should compare and assess other’s results.
	– Provides external context for your project
	– Justifies your project

4. Equipment and Methodology
– Details method and procdures
– Discusses the reasons for choosing your methods and procedures
Contents
	– Rationale for methodological apprach
	– Hypotheses
	– Description of study area
	– Demographic details of study population
	– How the population was selected
	– Description of types of data and sources
	– Descrption of methods and procedures for obtaining data
	– Description of methods and procedures of data analysis
For my research project, my aim is to meet with a 5 year old volunteer for at least 3 sessions. The first session would be to observe the child drawing boats using their imagination.
Session 1: The purpose would be to initially observe the child drawing boats using only their imagination. I would provide white paper, construction paper, markers, and crayons for the child to use. During the session I would start by asking the child to draw a boat. After I would begin to ask them to draw boats based on a goal, task, or objective. Ideally the session would occur within the time constraint of an hour. At the end I would ask the children questions about their experience which would include questions that are open ended for more data to be gathered, as well as short questions that would require a yes or no, easy or hard, and a fun or boring answer. (should I include an answer in the middle? )
Session 2: Test the skills of a 5 year old with computer and tablet games/apps. (May split this into 2 sessions) After I would ask the child questions like, "which game/app was your fav?", "which computer game/app did you like the most?", "" with tablet, "Which game/app was the most difficult to use?", (sepreate them into computer and tablet questions too)
Session 3: Try to build a GUI by this point and test it on them. (not 100% sure yet, need to complete more literature review (design principles))

1. Experimental Procedure
Children and Adults have different uses and expectations of computers (desktop and/or laptop) and tablets. Adults generally user tablets for content-consumption and computers for content creation. But tablets are easier to use among children for content-consumption and content-creation because mice and keyboards are not as intuitive. (https://www.diffen.com/difference/Laptop_vs_Tablet_computer, deisgn principles)
Research tools: interviews, usability-lab studies, participatory design, focus groups, moderated remote usability studies, concept testing, desirabilty studies

Materials
Computer creating Games:
Tablet creating Games:
Computer Drawing App: Sketchpad 5.1
Tablet Drawing App: Drawing with Carl, Drawing Pad
Paper Drawing: White Printer Paper, Construction Paper, scissors, glue, tape, crayons, markers, coloring pencils

The main questions these sessions should answer or provide insight to are the following:
What does a 5 year old's creative expressions look like, and what do they mean?
How do translate a 5 year old's creative expressions into engineering specifications? (on a GUI? design principles)
How do 5 year old's express their creativity? (on diff platforms, with diff purposes, free flow play vs not (guided play))
How to we  engage and elecit feelings of excitement when the user/designer is presented with the task of designing a paper boat? (on a GUI)
What functionalities should we or should we not include in the design of a GUI?

Session 1: Meet with volunteer; bring paper and supplies to draw boats boats for different purposes; observe difference, conduct interview
For the second session, I will meet with the volunteer. This session will consist of providing paper (construction paper) and art supplies, the child will be initially asked to draw a boat (figure out how to present it?, dream boat) After the child will be asked to draw boats designed to serve different objectives/purposes. (fast, tall, capacity to carry objects, etc.)  Observe how and why they design each boat to their liking, observe the difference between free flow vs not and how it affected their design or their creative expressions? Ask them questions (create a survey)
Session Specific Questions: How do they design it?

Session 2: Meet with volunteer; same as sesssion 1, but on tablet and computer; observe differences, conduct interview
For the third session, I will meet with the volunteer. This session will consist of providing a tablet and a computer with drawing applications with the child's objective to draw any boat they want on each platform. I will observe what they draw, how they draw it, which drawing tool they enjoyed more, which drawing application was more usable for the child. At the end I will ask the child questions about their drawings, as well as the drawing tools.
Session Specific Questions: When given the task to draw a boat, was it more easy to use a tablet or computer? What did you like about using one ove the other? What did you not like about the more easy applicaition? If you could have other tools added to the app, what would it be?
~~Maybe Session 3~~
For the inital session, I will meet with a the volunteer. This session will consist of playing games that are targeted to the 5 year old audience, but these games will be played on a tablet and on a computer. I will observe the difference between each game and platform used. Before ending I will ask the child questions based on the usability of each game on each platform.
Session Specific questions: When given the task to play games, was it more easy to use a tablet or computer? Which game did you like best on tablet and why? Which game did you like best on the computer and why? (Which game did you have the most fun? Will this recieve a similar answer? Can like/enjoy and fun be used interchangably?) Did you enjoy playing games more on the computer or on the tablet? (Do research and make list of computer and tablet games for 5 year olds, look into how and why they were designed.)
What functionality should we include (or not) in design? How to engage the user/designer, to excite boat design?

5. Results and Discussion
R
– Details the main findings
– Provides a summary explaination of results
– Accept or reject hypotheses if you have any
D
– Develop a logical argument about what your results mean.
– Your results provide evidence to illustrate and support your
argument.
– Identify potential errors--What might invalidate your results? How
might you improve research design?

6. Conclusions
– A restatement of the research problem
– A summary statement of main findings and their significance.
– Shortcomings of the research
– Agenda for future research

7. References and Citations
https://www.diffen.com/difference/Laptop_vs_Tablet_computer