SOKids
SoKids is a research-driven game project developed by Master’s of Entertainment Technology students participating in a concentration in Transformational Play with the CTP.
Working closely with early childhood researchers and educators at the CMU Children’s School SoKids explores how digital games can function as playful, yet reliable research tools to study how preschool-aged children perceive and make sense of social categories. Traditional research with young children often relies on direct questioning, one-on-one interviews, and highly structured lab settings. These methods can be costly, time-intensive, and dependent on children’s verbal explanations.
Rather than asking children to explain their thinking, SOKids embeds measurement directly into playful interaction. By observing structured choices, spatial positioning, and interaction patterns, the system gathers behavioral signals in ways that feel natural and developmentally appropriate. The system is intentionally structured to avoid teaching, reinforcing, or shaping beliefs. All design decisions are guided by developmental psychology research and ethical research frameworks.
SoKids is a tablet-based game designed for children ages 3–5. The game uses age-appropriate visual interaction, minimizes language demands, captures structured interaction data, and reduces logistical and financial barriers compared to traditional research methods. By lowering cost and operational overhead, SoKids aims to make early childhood research more scalable and accessible.
Phase one of the project involved the design and development of a game-based assessment tool. Future directions for the project include the publication of a design paper that investigates how games can be designed and used as assessment tools to measure social categorization and social preferences in young children.
About the Transformational Play Concentration
In partnership with the Center for Transformational Play, the offers as part of the Master’s of Entertainment Technology (MET) an optional concentration in Transformational Play. The concentration connects knowledge about how humans think, feel, and behave with the intentional design of playful systems that address real-world challenges. Students must first apply and be accepted into the ETC master’s program, then be accepted into the Transformational Play concentration. For the immersion semester, students choose from a list of concentration-related electives. They are assigned to concentration-specific project teams hosted on the main campus and receive seminar-style instruction, along with prototyping and design support. A required summer project is completed between the first and second years of the program.
Platform
Tablet Computer
Project Manager
Minjung Park
Student Team: Aya Al Sabahi, Gamma Zheng, Tony Liu, Minjung Park, Angie He, Zih-You (Victor) Jhou
Research Areas:
Human-Computer Interaction (HCII)
Game-Based Assesment
Early Childhood Social development
Website: