Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I mentioned below, they are making a tablet version of Scratch aimed at 5-7 year old kids. Out this summer.... http://www.scratchjr.org/
Just iPad or Android, too?
An Android version is planned for later.
MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
51–60 of 65 posts
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#52One of the older versions of Scratch had support for Lego WeDo. Does Scratch 2.0 have support for Lego WeDo? Would love to introduce it to my kids!
Yes, Scratch 2 does support Lego WeDo.
To enable support, shift + click "More Blocks" and the "Add an Extension" button will appear. From there you can select the LEGO WeDo extension. [1]
If your kids are into robotics, you may also be interested in MOSS - a modular robotic construction kit [2]. MOSS also supports Scratch programming, and in fact we are releasing our extension to the public this week (I'm the lead programmer on the project.), which we'll be announcing very soon.
We've been experimenting with Scratch in classrooms here in Boulder, CO, and we're amazed at how fast kids pick up programming concepts with Scratch!
[1] http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/LEGO_WeDo_Blocks [2] http://www.modrobotics.com/moss
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#53It's unfortunate that Scratch is built upon the Flash platform. Though Scratch has been released under the GPL, it requires nonfree software in order to run. Scratch looks interesting, but I cannot recommend its use until this problem is fixed.
Google's Blockly is similar and available under the Apache License: "Blockly is a component that may be useful for a variety of projects, including educational tools. We want developers to be able to play with Blockly, give feedback, and think of novel uses for it. All the code is free and open source." https://code.google.com/p/blockly/source/browse/trunk/COPYIN...
I've worked on a project that used Blockly and found it to be great : )
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#54I absolutely love Scratch. I get my six year old daughter to make all of the artwork and sound effects and I end up doing all the code. I've been really looking forward to Scratch Jr, just to see if she can do more of the coding.
One thing I'd love to see is an atan2 function in the math routines. Right now if you want to do anything a little bit tricky you end up having to implement your own.
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#55Scratch is a multimedia authoring tool that can be used by students, scholars, teachers, and parents for a range of educational and entertainment constructivist purposes from math and science projects, including simulations and visualizations of experiments, recording lectures with animated presentations, to social sciences animated stories, and interactive art and music. Simple games may be made with it, as well.
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#56This (along with the existence of the HTML5 version linked elsewhere in the comments, https://github.com/LLK/scratch-html5 ) is great news! I've always hesitated to point anyone at Scratch due to its non-open license. It's great to see that problem solved.
You'd point someone to an inferior learning tool because of your prejudice against non-free software? Really?
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#57I saw somewhere that (now their) App Inventor makes for 13 percent of language use for education purposes, while Python is at 14 percent. They must be doing something right. http://appinventor.mit.edu/
This is great. I use it for prototyping app ideas, and it works good so far. Only thing I've found to miss for my particular prototype is a "wait" function, but there's ways to build a little procedure for that.
(Also I submitted AppInventor to HN a while ago [1], but it didn't get any attention. Bad timing maybe? Either way, I think it's excellent in it's simplicity)
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#58I absolutely love Scratch. I get my six year old daughter to make all of the artwork and sound effects and I end up doing all the code. I've been really looking forward to Scratch Jr, just to see if she can do more of the coding. One thing I'd love to see is an atan2 function in the math routines. Right now if you want to do anything a little bit tricky you end up having to implement your own.
I do the same thing with my 6 year old daughter. She feels like a game designer and comes up with super crazy game ideas. Shark Salon? Sure! Let's do it!
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#59Is there a linux distro that is centered around Scratch that I can PXE boot on my media center PC for my son to play with? I'm interested in getting him into computing of sorts. I tried Doudoulinux, but it was mostly not good.
Instead of using your media center pc could you get him a Raspberry Pi? I bought my nephew an RPi so he could use Scratch and have a computer of his own. The only challenge I had was figuring out an easy way to introduce him to Minecraft Pi edition.
I have one for him. I just don't have anything to set it up with, yet. The HTPC is an easier test bed since it's already setup for PXE.
Re: MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source
#60Is there a linux distro that is centered around Scratch that I can PXE boot on my media center PC for my son to play with? I'm interested in getting him into computing of sorts. I tried Doudoulinux, but it was mostly not good.
When you install NOOBS on the Raspberry Pi there is a "boot to Scratch" option. Maybe that's an option? http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/
Thanks, I'll take a look at this. I hadn't heard of NOOBS before.