A Brief Survey of Distributed Computational Toys

Distributed computational toys are physical artifacts that function based on the coordination of more than one computing device. Often, these toys take the form of a microcontroller network embedded in a children´s construction kit. We present a survey of distributed computational toys. Although most of the toys we surveyed were built in the last five years and exist only as research projects, they build on the rich history of constructivism, constructionism and kinesthetic learning. Projects are tagged according to their structure, status, and intended functionality: construction kits, physical programming, and cellular automata.