The UCube: a child-friendly device for introductory three-dimensional design

Currently there is a burgeoning interest in three-dimensional construction and design: 3D printing and fabrication devices have--with almost shocking swiftness--become available to students and home hobbyists, allowing a vastly expanded audience to imagine, and then print out, their own tangible designs. Still, while the fabrication devices themselves are becoming available to younger children, the task of 3D design itself remains difficult for youngsters. The difficulty lies in the "2D screen bottleneck": three-dimensional objects for printing must generally be designed in complex software that works exclusively with, and through, a flat two-dimensional screen. This paper introduces the UCube, a spatial input device designed specifically with children and "3D novices" in mind. The basic idea behind the UCube is that it provides a spatial, volumetric array of light switches that can be turned on and off individually by the user; the pattern of lights is then input to a desktop computer, where it can be employed to specify a collection of 3D points in space. The result is that 3D design--at least for simple shapes--becomes a matter of moving one's hands in space to (e.g.) select the boundary points of the desired shape. We describe the design of the UCube, the influences behind it, and some early encouraging pilot tests of the device with middle-school-age children.