Active Tangibles for Tabletop Interaction based on the Kniwwelino Prototyping Platform

To allow researchers explore the use of active tangibles in different tabletop scenarios, affordable and easy-to-use rapid prototyping tools are needed. This paper presents the design and implementation of active tangibles based on a microcontroller-based development platform called Kniwwelino. They are wirelessly connected via WiFi and can be programmed in Arduino or using a block-based visual programming language. We present the details of our implementation, propose a scenario of use, and describe our findings following the implementation of this scenario.