Empathy games are a promising yet new research avenue that explores how to design empathic game experiences that would help children to understand and address the emotions of other people. Research in this field was primarily done in the USA and there is a research gap in understanding how empathy game design can apply and differ from the contexts of other countries. Our study replicated a study earlier conducted in the USA, aiming to explore the dynamic of the PD process, and identify specifics and challenges for PD methodology related to empathy and game design in the Indian context. We conducted a series of participatory design (PD) sessions with 18 Indian children between 7 and 11 years old. This paper reports our preliminary findings, including the following: (1) it might be challenging for Indian children to discuss and design for empathy and emotions-related topics, (2) using the English language can be a barrier while working with Indian children of 8 years old and younger, (3) cultural context affects roles children play in the design process. This paper contributes insights on identifying areas for further methodological work in PD for the Indian context.

This paper presents an exploratory case study of a Makeathon program called STEAM for Social Good, designed to empower middle school students in India. The program design was based on a set of three design principles developed by the IEEE Pre-University STEM Education team. Students were taught creative problem-solving techniques for addressing societal problems. They learned to design IoT-based prototypes and Android apps. Thirty-four students attended the ten-day training program and participated in the two-day Makeathon in ten teams. Our results show that the program helped develop children's competence in physical computing and app development and enabled them to apply their knowledge to create innovative working prototypes for sustainable development goal challenges. They learned to work with material and time constraints and create working prototypes from concept to completion during the Makeathon. Overall, the children were more confident as students after the program and saw how technology could make a difference.

The Covid pandemic is a clarion call for increased sensitivity to the interconnected nature of social problems facing our world today. A future-oriented education on critical issues, such as those outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and designing potential solutions for such problems is an imperative skill that must be imparted to children to help them navigate their future in today’s unpredictable world. Towards this goal, we have been conducting 3.5 month-long mentoring sessions for pre-university students in India to participate in a STEAM for Social Good innovation challenge conducted annually by the Government of India. Using digital and physical computing skills, we helped children explore creative solutions for social problems through a constructionist approach to learning, wherein they ideated and reflected upon the problems in their communities. The children learnt the Engineering Design Thinking process and worked in online groups of two or three, from concept to completion. Despite the constraints posed by the pandemic, they explored creative ways to think about design and innovation. They completed a variety of tasks by making, tinkering, engineering, assembling, and programming to grasp the intricate relationship between software and hardware. Subsequently, the children showcased their creative abilities through video storytelling to a panel of domain experts. In this paper, we present the children’s perspective of their experiences through this journey, the evaluation metrics based on IEEE design principles, and our learnings from conducting this initiative as a university-school partnership model for 84 middle and high school students. The aspirational intent of this initiative is to make the children better social problem solvers and help them perceive social problems as opportunities to enhance life for themselves and their communities.

This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel collaborative educational game titled "Land of Hands", involving children and a customized social robot that we designed (HakshE). Through this gaming platform, we aim to teach proper hand hygiene practises to children and explore the extent of interactions that take place between a pro-social robot and children in such a setting. We blended gamification with Computers as Social Actors (CASA) paradigm to model the robot as a social actor or a fellow player in the game. The game was developed using Godot’s 2D engine and Alice 3. In this study, 32 participants played the game online through a video teleconferencing platform Zoom. To understand the influence a pro-social robot’s nudges has on children’s interactions, we split our study into two conditions: With-Nudges and Without-Nudges. Detailed analysis of rubrics and video analyses of children’s interactions show that our platform helped children learn good hand hygiene practises. We also found that using a pro-social robot creates enjoyable interactions and greater social engagement between the children and the robot although learning itself wasn’t influenced by the pro-sociality of the robot.

From time immemorial, stories have caught the fascination of young and old. Rural children in India, in particular, have a natural way of telling stories that are rooted in their heritage of social norms, values, and belief systems that are compelling and emotionally engaging. The process of writing and narrating their own stories enhances their verbal proficiency and makes them reflect deeply upon the story theme, thereby enabling them to develop higher-order thinking. In this research study, the author used stories to introduce physical computing and robotics to children in rural India in a personally meaningful manner. Children created interactive cultural dioramas based on classical stories from Indian folklore with robotic puppets that they programmed using the Scratch programming language. They learned 21st-century skills of creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking by working in groups wherein they learned to divide tasks, manage time, work together, debate the pros and cons of different ideas, listen, think out of the box, and be active and engaged. The author observed that such an intervention improved the children's sense of agency and their interest in robotics and computational thinking. The author presents her results from pilot studies conducted in 2019 from two semi-urban schools in India on the children's perception of creating robots, programming, tinkering with electronics, career in robotics, and the workshop experience itself - all of which suggests that the children were deeply engaged and enthusiastic throughout the workshop making the entire learning experience a meaningful and joyful one for all. The results indicate that such culturally sensitive interventions can help children from collectivistic cultures embrace technology while preserving their traditional identities and cultural cohesion.