Smart textiles prototyping: Participating with new ideas

This paper outlines our work with children who use our smart textiles construction kit in a “living lab”. Our constructionist approach to participatory design with children is inspired by Allison Druin’s “Cooperative Inquiry”. The main idea is to not only develop software and hardware for and with children, but more importantly to enable insight and a rich learning experience via deep involvement with new technologies. In a bilateral learning environment we acknowledge children’s ideas for future products and research directions. It is therefore essential to equip them with tools that support their imagination, that facilitate technology immersion, and that allow rapid creation of high-tech prototypes with novel materials. Our convergent approach to developing and employing such a toolkit is rooted in education and aims at the empowerment of children to express their ideas.