ModBot: A Tangible and Modular Making Toolkit for Children to Create Underwater Robots

Underwater robot is essential equipment for exploring the marine environment. It is important that children get exposed to these technologies as earlier as possible, especially there is a high demand for developing expertise and awareness in the underwater robot. Although examples of making toolkit for children currently exist, few focus specifically on integration with the water environment. In this paper, we explore the making toolkit, ModBot, which can be applied to the water environment. The hardware was developed using electronic, counterweight, and shape modules that can be manipulated to build underwater robots. The software application allows children to learn concepts and receive construction feedback. This paper presents the system design of ModBot, the design rationale, and a user study for the usability of ModBot. Our system is expected to spark children's interests and creativity of underwater robots, and foster their understanding of the water environment.