Tangible Collaborative Learning with a Mixed-Reality Game: EarthShake

We explore the potential of bringing together the advantages of computer games and the physical world to increase engagement, collaboration and learning. We introduce EarthShake: A tangible interface and mixed-reality game consisting of an interactive multimodal earthquake table, block towers and a computer game synchronized with the physical world via depth camera sensing. EarthShake helps kids discover physics principles while experimenting with real blocks in a physical environment supported with audio and visual feedback. Students interactively make predictions, see results, grapple with disconfirming evidence and formulate explanations in forms of general principles. We report on a preliminary user study with 12 children, ages 4-8, indicating that EarthShake produces large and significant learning gains, improvement in explanation of physics concepts, and clear signs of productive collaboration and high engagement.