Collaborative Coding and Composing of JazzHands: Integrating the Learning of Advanced Computational Concepts with Electronic Textiles to Make Music Wearables

The links between music and computation date back at least three decades. This trend has led to the development of learning environments for novices to make music and learn computational concepts. However, research connecting music and computation is mostly situated within the context of on-screen programming, with little research involving hybrid, tangible environments. Electronic textiles (e-textiles) is one such hybrid context where learners craft interactive physical artifacts by sewing microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators onto toys, clothes, or other fabric accessories. Prior studies show that Arduino-based e-textiles afford opportunities for students to learn basic concepts such as variables and control flow but not more advanced concepts such as arrays and for loops. In our study, we expand learning with e-textiles as learners compose and code music to address the following research question: What are the affordances of designing musical wearables to deepen computational conceptual learning? We present a case study of a group of four 15-17-year-old youth and an adult co-making a musical wearable-JazzHands-a glove augmented with actuators such as LEDs and speaker, and motion, touch, and light sensors. We analyzed videos of the group's collaborative design sessions, student daily journals, multiple versions of the code, and post-workshop, artifact-based interviews with the youth. Our analysis revealed that making musical wearables not only allowed the youth to express themselves and relate to computing as a creative endeavor but also afforded unique opportunities to work with constructs such as arrays indices, sensor data integration, and logical expressions to control for loops.