Teegi: Tangible EEG Interface V2

Scientific Outreach with Teegi, a Tangible EEG Interface to Talk about Neurotechnologies.

Cerebral activity is an intangible physiological process that is difficult to apprehend, especially for children. To overcome this difficulty, the new version of Teegi was designed as a innovative type of educational support. This tangible interface enables children to discover the relationship between brain activity and the functions of the human body.

The new version of Teegi is 3D printed, and embeds a Raspberry Pi 3 and NiMh batteries (autonomy of approximately 2 hours). A python script on the Raspberry Pi handles the 402 LEDs (Adafruit Neopixel) covering the “head”, which are connected to its GPIO pins. For a smoother display, the light of the LEDs is diffused by a 3mm thick cap made of acrylic glass. Two 8-by-8 white LEDs matrices picture the eyes. The script also commands the servomotors placed in the hands and feet, 4 Dynamixel XL320.

We used this new version of Teegi as a case of study for developing a multi-methods research approach to estimate the pedagogical potential of a tangible interface used in a real-life educational context. Using this methodology, we conducted a user study (N=29) that highlighted the strengths of this interface, both in terms of its usability and its impact on learning. Moreover, results revealed possible improvements to further increase pedagogical effectiveness. This type of interface, as well as the evaluation method that we propose, contribute to extending our knowledge concerning the pedagogical use of new interactive tools at school.

See also our initial work on Teegi (UIST 2014)

 

Publications:

Stéphanie Fleck, Charlotte Baraudon, Jérémy Frey, Thibault Lainé, Martin Hachet, « Teegi, il est trop beau »: Exemple d’évaluation du potentiel pédagogique d’une interface tangible interactive pour enfants en contexte scolaire. AFIHM. 29ème conférence francophone sur l’Interaction Homme-Machine, Aug 2017, Poitiers, France. ACM, IHM-2017, 12 p., 2017 (The accompanying demo won the best demo award)

Jérémy Frey, Renaud Gervais, Thibault Lainé, Maxime Duluc, Hugo Germain, Stéphanie Fleck, Fabien Lotte, Martin Hachet. Scientific Outreach with Teegi, a Tangible EEG Interface to Talk about Neurotechnologies. CHI ’17 Interactivity – SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing System, May 2017, Denver, United States.

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