Prototyping Connected Tangible Interactions with Kniwwelino Christian Moll, Johannes Hermen, Valérie Maquil, Henrique Rangel, John-Nathan Hill Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology 5, avenue des Hauts Fourneaux, L-4362 Esch/Alzette, Luxembourg christian.moll@list.lu ABSTRACT functionalities, such as sending and receiving sensor values This workshop will introduce Kniwwelino, a new Arduino over lean message based communication protocols. compatible microcontroller platform, supporting the Furthermore, Kniwwelino should be sufficiently small to be electronic prototyping of interactive and connected objects. integrated in any type of object and provide easy to use Kniwwelino provides sensors and actuators encapsulated extensions with the related software libraries. with Wi-Fi functionality, made easily accessible through a KNIWWELINO specially developed Arduino library. The workshop is The Kniwwelino hardware consists of a 5x5 LED matrices, designed as continuation of workshop 2, dedicated to the a RGB LED and two push buttons. There are additional ports actual implementation of the previously elaborated ideas. that can be used to extend the board by additional sensors Aim is to explore the possibilities and limitations of the and other peripherals. The underlaying micro-controller platform for prototyping tangible interaction enabled IoT platform is also embedding a Wi-Fi stack. That enables the projects. Kniwwelino to connect itself to other Kniwwelino's over the Internet. By implementing standard IoT message protocols, Author Keywords Physical computing, Tangible User Interfaces, Internet of like MQTT it could be easily be integrated in existing IoT Things, Prototyping installations. The small size of the printed circuit board makes it possible to embed the Kniwwelino in nearly every INTRODUCTION crafted enclosure or object to not limit the development of Prototyping methods play an important role in the design of the child's creativity. tangible user interfaces. Since the tangible design space offers a wealth of opportunities, intermediate prototypes are commonly used to rapidly iterate between options, collect feedback from users, and identify quickly mistakes [4,5]. In the past years, many low-cost electronic development platforms have become available on the market (e.g. [2,3]). Aim of these platforms usually is to support users without knowledge in electronics in exploring design solutions that make use of various alternative sensors and actuators. However, most of the available boards provide pure processing power. To be able to connect the device to the Internet additional hardware needs to be added, requiring advanced skills in electronics and software. Other boards like the BBC micro:bit or the Calliope mini come with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) which needs additional hardware like Figure 1. 3D Rendering of the Kniwwelino mobile phones or PC to connect them to the Internet. The group of Wi-Fi enabled development boards consists of WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION the ones that come with a Wi-Fi hardware in addition to the Aim of the workshop is to explore the possibilities and microcontroller and the ones which integrate the Wi-Fi into limitations of the Kniwwelino platform for prototyping the microcontroller as so called System on a Chip (SoC). In tangible interaction enabled IoT projects. the last group the ESP8266 has to be highlighted as it is very The workshop is designed as a continuation of the workshop popular in the Maker scene, because there is a brought “Interaction with the Internet of Tangible Things (IoTT)” [1] support in different programming languages like Arduino, and will first give an introduction on how to setup the Lua, Micro Pyhton, etc. Arduino IDE to work with the Kniwwelino. After a quick With Kniwwelino, we seek to provide a low-cost walk-through of the Kniwwelino library functions, showing development platform providing easy access to IoT how to use the core functionality, we will start to develop concepts in small groups how to implement a first functional 2. BBC Micro:bit. Retrieved June 6, 2017 from prototype from the paper designs developed in the previous http://microbit.org workshop. Workshop participants will then implement the 3. Calliope. Retrieved June 6, 2017 from http://calliope.cc concepts in software, as well as embed the hardware into a cardboard prototype. 4. Joel Sadler, Kevin Durfee, Lauren Shluzas, and Paulo Blikstein. 2015. Bloctopus: A Novice Modular Sensor In the end of the workshop each group will present their System for Playful Prototyping. Proceedings of the Ninth prototype to the audience. The workshop finishes with a International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and discussion on the encountered problems and identified Embodied Interaction: 347–354. opportunities. 5. Alexander Wiethoff, Hanna Schneider, Michael Rohs, Andreas Butz, and Saul Greenberg. 2012. Sketch - a - REFERENCES 1. Leonardo Angelini, Nadine Couture, Omar Abou TUI : Low Cost Prototyping of Tangible Interactions Khaled, Elena Mugellini. 2017. Interaction with the Using Cardboard and Conductive Ink. Proceedings of the Internet of Tangible Things (IoTT). CEUR Workshop Sixth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded Proceedings of the Third European Tangible Interaction and Embodied Interaction 1, 212: 309–312. Studio (ETIS).