"I Want to Use Technology to Help Farmers in the Future": Enhancing Children's Understanding of Farming through TUI and Embodied Interaction
Abstract
WooGu is an educational system integrating digital devices, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs), and embodied interactions to teach children about the full farming process. The system combines real-time digital feedback with hands-on physical activities using 3D-printed farming tools and a watchOS app.
System Design
The system bridges 3D-printed tools with integrated sensors (IMU — accelerometers and gyroscopes) to provide multi-modal feedback (visual, haptic, and digital), encouraging children's physical engagement with farming concepts. A Recurrent Neural Network handles real-time movement classification through the watchOS companion app.
Key Findings
- Sequence Card Sorting scores: rice pre-test 2.9 → post-test 3.9
- Seed Status Matching accuracy: 67% → 89%
- Knowledge Questionnaire scores: 1.53 → 5.73
- High engagement and attitude shift toward appreciation of farming and agricultural technology
Video
Publication
Yili Wen, Jiaxin Wang, Hongni Ye, Liang He, Min Fan, Xin Tong. "I Want to Use Technology to Help Farmers in the Future": Enhancing Children's Understanding of Farming through Tangible User Interfaces and Embodied Interaction. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC '25).