Translating Design Requirements into a Hybrid Prototype for Early Programming Education: The Iterative Development of IMPACT+

This paper traces the design process behind IMPACT+, a hybrid programming prototype called Orbit Cleaner, aimed at children aged eight to ten. Its central contribution is a documented, evidence-informed translation of classroom findings into concrete design features, rather than a claim about the prototype's effectiveness. The work begins with a classroom evaluation of the analogue IMPACT board game involving 161 pupils, 21 focus-group participants, and eight teachers, from which the authors derived requirements around rule clarity, left-right spatial orientation, scalable classroom setup, motivating narrative, and level progression with low preparation effort.

These requirements were translated into a set of design decisions: a space-debris mission narrative kept subordinate to learning goals, guided onboarding, colour- and visual-based orientation cues, rewards, ten progressive levels, and a hybrid mode in which children plan programs with physical command cards and execute them digitally. The authors explicitly allocate pedagogical functions across analogue and digital components, with the digital layer supplying narrative, guidance, visual feedback, and structured progression while the physical cards preserve hands-on planning.

The prototype was subsequently piloted in four primary school classes in May and June 2026, focusing on usability, design feedback, and initial gains in sequencing and loops. The authors are careful to state that these pilot observations do not establish learning effects or classroom feasibility. Those claims are deferred to a planned empirical classroom phase beginning in Autumn 2026, so the paper's conclusions should be read as a transparent account of design reasoning awaiting validation.