Social Wearables for Edu-LARP

As part of our ongoing research into social wearables and combining them with the collaborative problem-solving nature of Live Action Role Play, we are designing an Educational LARP camp, aimed at a full-scale deployment by 2021. We aim to capitalize on the creative adaptation that comes from Live Action Role Play and the creation of social wearables to channel it into increased interest in Technology and Making in middle school girls, including those from lower socio-economic status and diverse backgrounds who are frequently left out of STEM. We have explored hardware and IDE options within the interconnected network of Maker ecosystems and created a prototype kit built around the BBC Micro:Bit ecosystem with an additional string of RGB LEDs. We have worked to find a form factor that offers a zero soldering fabrication and robust prototypes that are more suitable to wearable prototyping. In this paper, we discuss this early prototype and the motivation for the Educational LARP Camp.