Nomadic Play in Mixed Environments

The project focuses on exploring and developing new IT based concepts and artifacts supporting play, learning and communication for kids and teenagers. Kids’ activities are characterized by being nomadic in the sense, that they spend their daily life as “nomads” in transit between many physical places (“oases”) such as: school, after school, club, sports clubs, with pals, and often also in multiple homes. In their nomadic living, kids use digital toys such as computer games, mobile phones, mp3 players, etc. as cross boundary artifacts using the flexibility and mobility that technology provides to stage their personal way of living. The digital toys share the advantages in nomadic playing that they are easy to carry and use in many places both outdoor and indoor.

The goal of this project is to investigate the new forms of kids’ activity and explore how IT can be integrated in physical artifacts and environments in new ways in order to stimulate playful learning, imagination and conceptual thinking in the physical world. The project will take advantage of the qualities of IT, beyond the robot and motor approach taken in many toys today. Results of the project will be conceptual frameworks and scenarios as well as exploratory and functional prototypes.