A Michigan State University professor is using "smart toys" to find new ways to introduce science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to young children.
Subir Biswas, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, is combining artificial intelligence and instrumented children's blocks to better understand spatial reasoning and learning among the future generation of engineers and computer scientists. The collaborating work with Northwestern University is supported by a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.
"We have taken children's blocks and made them smart with sensors and artificial intelligence, so we can detect how children interact with them," Biswas explained. "By tracking movement and how multiple blocks are handled in a group, we're able to facilitate machine learning to highlight their patterns of block building and play. It suggests children's strategies for three dimensional spatial thinking, and ultimately STEM learning among three to eight years olds.
Biswas said playing blocks, along with other toys and jigsaw puzzle pieces, are helping researchers precisely record how children interact with them both individually and in a group.
"The blocks are "smart' in that they can detect the child interactions by tracking acceleration, rotation, vibration, sound, and how different blocks are placed and handled with respect to each other. The data is recorded and collected wirelessly in the cloud at very high temporal and spatial resolutions for algorithmic AI interpretations," he continued.
"For the long term, we envision introducing ubiquitous smartness into many everyday objects so that tracking, and analysis of spatial intelligence can be seamless and highly scalable," he added.