Using a classic postSkinnerian behavioural model test, we divided a group of preschoolers into those who had the ability to read (group A) and those who didn’t (group B).

From each group, we pulled 29 children, put the two (labeled subgroups A and B) in separate but identical rooms and allowed the children to play with the same set of toys, books, etc.

The remaining children (subgroups labeled A’ and B’) were put together into a supersubgroup labeled C, placed in one room, handed childsafe-plastic Arduino programming guides that resembled reading lesson books and given military-grade tablet computers to play with.

The programming guides provided instructions for accessing interactive versions of themselves on the tablet PCs.

Furthermore, the programming guides included lessons for wirelessly programming the Arduino-based toys in the rooms of subgroups A and B.

By default, the toys had built-in functions for memory games – Simon Sez (repeating lighted button patterns), Concentration (recalling pairs of matching images) and Singalong (humming sets of playful musical tones).

The children in subgroup C were rewarded for writing programs that created games with the toughest learning curves on the toys.  On a side note, some of the children tended to teach the nonreaders how to read in order to increase overall subgroup success.  The few nonparticipating readers and nonreaders were pulled out after three weeks and placed in subgroup E (see below).

The children in subgroups A and B were rewarded for solving the new games the fastest.  The ones who, instead of playing with toys, chose to read and thus solved the riddles that described Arduino programming problems in “plain” word/sentence form, were removed and put in subgroup D that wrote new problems/games for subgroup C to program.  The children in subgroup D were rewarded for the most number of problems that subgroup C chose to program.

A subset of children in all subgroups shied away from toys, books and/or tablet PCs, breaking up into small social groups or going off singly.  They were pulled out after three weeks and put together as subgroup E in a room that was connected to an outdoor playground which included a maze that exited into a tetrahedron-shaped room of mirrors with a hidden microphone connected to a voice-activated parroting system that repeated the last 20 seconds of spoken/sung sounds.

We now have children in subgroup C who speak and act “Arduino” as extensions of themselves.

The children in subgroups A and B speak and act as extensions of subgroup C.

Subgroup D overtly but unknowingly controls subgroups A, B and C.

Subgroup E was observed for potential future preschooler test scenarios.

Due to the nature of the experiment, no control group was set aside, because no proposed outcome had been established ahead of time.  The only assumption was that no physical harm should befall the children.  Longterm mental effects were undefined and not speculated about.

More as it develops in this postmodern preapp programming generation.

We are part of Experiment Set Class Group AG Subgroup 0030, rewarded for the quickest and most profitable contribution of preschoolers to functioning society.