TaG-Games: Tangible geometric games for assessing cognitive problem-solving skills and fine motor proficiency

This paper presents Tangible Geometric Games (TaG-Games) as a novel play-based assessment tool for measuring cognitive problem-solving skills and fine motor proficiency. TaG-Games are based on sensor-integrated geometric blocks (SIG-Blocks) and an interactive graphical user interface providing a means for real-time and remote monitoring of a player through wireless communication between the blocks and a host computer. The data made available by employing TaG-Games includes: 1) accelerations, 2) time at each stage of assembly completion, 3) total completion time for each quiz, and 4) correctness of each assembly step. In addition, the user interface displays the real-time assembly configuration of the blocks. As a computational method for analyzing complexity associated with geometric play, a quantitative measure of play complexity is defined based on an information-theoretic approach. The validity of the sensors integrated in each SIG-Block (an accelerometer and optical sensors) is evaluated for measuring tilt angles and detecting assemblies between the blocks.