Enabling nonexpert construction of basic sensor-based systems

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Enabling nonexpert construction of basic sensor-based systems

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ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) archive
Volume 16 , Issue 1 (April 2009) table of contents

Article No. 1

Year of Publication: 2009

ISSN:1073-0516

Authors

Susan Lysecky	University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Frank Vahid	University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA

Publisher

ACM New York, NY, USA

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ABSTRACT

Technology trends have enabled deployment of low-cost sensor-based systems, but designing customized sensor-based systems to carry out specific tasks still requires costly engineering by experts. We briefly summarize eBlocks, a technology enabling nonexperts to quickly construct basic customized sensor-based systems, without requiring electronics or knowledge of programming languages. We describe experiments illustrating successful construction of Boolean sensor-based systems by novice users, focusing on intuitive logic and state block design. Additionally, we present preliminary experiments demonstrating usability of integer-based blocks and introduce a programmable block and the corresponding configuration methodology intended for nonexpert users.

REFERENCES

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