Potential Contribution to Food Education of a Digital Cooking Game Using Tangible User Interface.

We think that ambient intelligence can expand playing house is one of the most popular play for young children. Therefore, we developed a prototype of cooking application for iPad. And we adopted Tangiblock invented by Bennesse Corporation as natural user interface. For cooking, users tap and rub a screen of the iPad with the ingredient and tool blocks. After that, a dish will be completed and the kind of dish decided automatically by combination of blocks. To make the user imagine eating the dish, we used an appetizing picture to express the dish. And we provided a recipe of the dish too, if they want to make it for real. As a result of observation, the game seemed able to attract children's interest in food, and we have think ambient intelligence has the potential to contribute to food education.