Industry

Educational Technology

Client

Institute of Design

Earth-o-labe

A multi-modal inclusive learning experience

Industry

Educational Technology

Client

Institute of Design

Earth-o-labe

A multi-modal inclusive learning experience

Industry

Educational Technology

Client

Institute of Design

Earth-o-labe

A multi-modal inclusive learning experience

Overview

Earth-o-labe is an interactive, educational game designed to aid learning outcomes for 6th-graders learning about seasonal cycles. It contains a multi modal teaching experience that helps teach students through sensory stimulations and associative learning.

TimeLINE

Oct - Nov 2023
(5 weeks)

Lecturer

Zach Pino

Paolo Tanedo

Team

Michael George

Role

Design strategy

Product design

Interaction design

Tools

Figma

Cura

Arduino

Brief

The digital learning experience includes accessibility settings on the start screen and throughout the app. This allows teachers or students to change the font size, turn on high contrast, and audio narration. This ensures kids with disabilities aren't left out of engaging learning experiences.

How might we create an inclusive and engaging learning experience

At first, we selected an approach of design for disability, focusing on completing a baseline experience and adding in features to support those with visual disabilities. We conducted primary research to survey what the current learning experiences offered and was lacking.

DIGITAL EXPERIENCE

Learning experiences aren't designed with a design for disability approach

Inclusivity should be the foundation of all learning experiences. The digital learning experience includes accessibility settings on the start screen and throughout the app. This allows teachers or students to change the font size, turn on high contrast, and audio narration. This ensures kids with disabilities aren't left out of engaging learning experiences.

PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE

Legos; the building blocks for creating an affordable, tactile, and engaging learning experience.

This experience was designed considering students with visual impairments. We chose legos to create an engaging experience where the kids could put the system together and reduce cost of production As a result the physical model encourages students to use touch to feel the equator and poles.

Orbiting Adruino

Applying rudimentary skills in Adruino, Micheal and I set out to program the bread board to rotate the earth around the sun, and stop the rotation when a limit switch was hit.

#include <Encoder.h>

const int motorControlPin = 9; // Pin to control the TIP120 transistor
const int enableMotorPin = 10; // Pin to enable the motor

// Define the pins for limit switches
const int switch1Pin = 2; // Pin for the first limit switch
const int switch2Pin = 3; // Pin for the second limit switch
const int switch3Pin = 4; // Pin for the third limit switch
const int switch4Pin = 5; // Pin for the fourth limit switch

Encoder myEnc(6, 7);
bool motorRunning = false;

int newPosition = 0;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(motorControlPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(enableMotorPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(switch1Pin, INPUT_PULLUP);
  pinMode(switch2Pin, INPUT_PULLUP);
  pinMode(switch3Pin, INPUT_PULLUP);
  pinMode(switch4Pin, INPUT_PULLUP);
}



void stopMotor() {
  digitalWrite(motorControlPin, LOW); // Turn off the motor
  motorRunning = false;
}

void loop() {
  long newPosition = myEnc.read();
  Serial.println(newPosition);
  digitalRead(switch1Pin);
 // int potValue = analogRead(A0); // Read the potentiometer value
  if (newPosition >119 || newPosition >0){
  newPosition = 0;}
  
  else if (newPosition == 0) {
    stopMotor();
    }
  else if (newPosition > 0 && newPosition <= 29){
    
    if (switch1Pin == HIGH)
    stopMotor();
  }
  }

SENSORY EXPERIENCE

Is it me or did it just get hot in here? Must be the Peltier Plates!

Motivated by our inclusive framework we though tof different ways we could make the Earth-o-labe a multi-sensory experience. The Addition of Peltier plates the Earth-o-labe to simulate seasonal temperature changes in two different cities, Chicago, Illinois and Sydney, Australia, representing the Northern and Southern hemispheres respectively.

SENSORY EXPERIENCE

Inspired by music, creating association through sound

Each season's positional location was accompanied with audio queue to create an association. Songs by Lupe Fiasco (Summer, Winter, Spring & Fall) from the Tetsuo & Youth, creating an additional non-visual experience.

© Faysal Biobaku 2026

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