Interactive Die as an Educational Tool for Children with Special Educational Needs

The die as we know is a small, throwable object with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. Although there’s variations, the most common form of die is a cube with dots marked on each side with the aim of generating random numbers in tabletop games. This notion can be extended to the pedagogic field making use of recent technologies in connected embedded systems. This article presents the design and proof of concept of an interactive die as an educational tool for children with SEN. The die consists of a RGB LED matrix for each of its six sides so it can display any kind of low-resolution symbols like numbers, letters, arrows or multicolor patterns presented in the form of animations, additionally includes an IMU to obtain the cube orientation and user tap detection when selecting the presented option on top side, audible and haptic feedback.