Designing a physical coding kit for early childhood individuals

Within the scope of this master's thesis, a physical programming system is being designed and developed. The system consists of a robotic unit that enables children to program with analog signals, along with physical command blocks made of wood and plastic materials, and a panel where these blocks are placed. Unlike the magnetic sensing, color recognition, or optical reading methods commonly used in existing robotic coding products, this system is coded through fixed resistors integrated into the command blocks and potentiometers integrated into the command panel. The robot unit of the coding set is equipped with a custom printed circuit board built on a microcontroller (e.g., ATmega328P). When command blocks are placed on the command panel, they connect to the robot unit, and the voltage values received by the microcontroller through analog pins are converted to digital values using ADC. The digital values are classified according to predefined threshold values. On the software side, a noise-tolerant reading algorithm has been developed for filtering, limiting analog signals, and eliminating erroneous inputs. Additionally, the system is configured with an expandable and modular software architecture that allows for the definition of new command blocks in the future. This technical approach enables early-age children to learn basic algorithms and coding concepts through physical objects like wooden blocks. This system, developed using the Design-Based Research method, has been designed as a safe, low-cost, suitable for domestic production, and sustainable learning tool. During the prototype testing phase, the correct generation of digital commands from physical commands was monitored through Arduino IDE's serial monitor, and the accuracy of the line lengths drawn by the robot while moving forward and the turning angles created by rotating in different directions was reported by determining the angles of geometric shapes that the robot was programmed to draw using image processing technology and calculating error rates.