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Haptic Models of Arrays Through 3D Printing for Computer Science Education

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 9758))

Abstract

Computer science is taught as a regular subject in the school systems of many countries. Most tools used to teach main topics of computer science curricula, such as data structures and algorithms, are visually oriented. Our work aims to assist visually impaired students to understand fundamental data structures and algorithms through 3D printed haptic models. We developed a simple but general method that can be used by the teacher to introduce data structures and algorithmic thinking to both visual impaired and sighted students in inclusive classes. We evaluated our models for teaching one-dimensional arrays to both visual impaired and sighted students.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank I.S.I. Fermi, I.S.I. Pertini, U.S.P. Lucca and FabLab Toscana for their support in developing the proposed models.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Nicola Papazafiropulos, Luca Fanucci & Roberto Roncella

  2. ISTI CNR, Pisa, Italy

    Barbara Leporini

  3. Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Susanna Pelagatti

Authors
  1. Nicola Papazafiropulos
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  2. Luca Fanucci
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  3. Barbara Leporini
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  4. Susanna Pelagatti
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  5. Roberto Roncella
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicola Papazafiropulos .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute Integriert Studieren, Universität Linz, Linz, Austria

    Klaus Miesenberger

  2. Rehabilitationswissenschaften, Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany

    Christian Bühler

  3. Masaryk University , Brno, Czech Republic

    Petr Penaz

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Papazafiropulos, N., Fanucci, L., Leporini, B., Pelagatti, S., Roncella, R. (2016). Haptic Models of Arrays Through 3D Printing for Computer Science Education. In: Miesenberger, K., Bühler, C., Penaz, P. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9758. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41264-1_67

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41264-1_67

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41263-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41264-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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