Abstract

This paper presents a tangible user interface (TUI) architecture to help mitigate the educational difficulties in teaching and learning abstract and complex concepts in Software Engineering and Robotics. The tailored design and development of this innovative framework address the unique challenges faced in higher education to actively engage students in technical concepts required to develop smart knowledge infrastructures. The novel integration of active tangible components on TUI tabletop architectures is presented within this paper and evaluated for its effectiveness as an educational technology to explain Robot Operating System (ROS) based sensor network topologies. Analysis of assessed results highlight the aptness and effectiveness of the proposed TUI framework in delivering a knowledge gain of 14.6% over traditional educational technologies. This illustrates the aptness and suitability of integrating tangible technology for abstracted software and robotic engineering concepts within higher educational institutions.