Participatory materials: having a reflective conversation with an artifact in the making

Designing and building mechatronic systems has gradually ceased to be the domain of only highly trained professionals and has become broadly accessible. Drawing from a notion of designing as a conversation with the materials of the situation we built an artifact that could actively engage in its own making by embedding a Wizard of Oz operated animated agent into an Arduino prototyping platform. In a 2x2 between-participants Wizard of Oz laboratory experiment with (N=68) high-school students we specifically examined how this prototyping agent's expression of interest affected perceptions of the agent and learning outcomes dependent on the embodiment of the agent as embedded in the prototyping material itself or as an external entity. We found evidence that embedding an agent into the prototyping material can positively influence learning processes and outcomes while not harming perceptions of the agent.