Scratch
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#2 2007-03-11 20:19:15
- nintendogg
- Scratcher
- Registered: 2007-03-11
- Posts: 2
Re: Scratch Board
It is really a Scratch controler that you can use and program with Scratch and yes it works with any version of Scratch 
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#3 2007-03-11 23:47:40
Re: Scratch Board
nintendogg wrote:
It is really a Scratch controler that you can use and program with Scratch and yes it works with any version of Scratch
OK, so where can I find out more about it? I've searched this site, but have found only casual references with no details.
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#6 2007-03-20 17:08:42
Re: Scratch Board
Hi Nick,
I am also interested in the scratch board because I would like to give a Scratch course with fancy hardware interaction in the base school of my children (8 and 10 yrs). My background is physics and my current position is head of hardware development in a company designing environmental monitoring systems.
Would it be possible to get a schematic from you? I could do a PCB board design in Eagle (www.cadsoft.de) and give it to you and/or the community. Are any information available concerning the serial data protocol? Is it extensible? Will scratch become open source so that the community can enlarge its capabilites?
As far as I understand Scratch runs in a Squeak VM. Does this provide any insight into Scratch?
Regards,
Rolf
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#7 2007-03-20 17:52:56
Re: Scratch Board
Hi, Rolf
I'll try to answer some of your questions.
First, we'll be making the Scratchboards available at cost (around $30, we think) soon. I will let others respond to the question of making hardware design available. (It's already in Eagle.) The serial protocol is very simple; email scratch-feedback at media.mit.edu and I will send you the spec.
We plan to make the source code of Scratch available later this year so that others can experiment with it.
Squeak is a cool, open-souce Smalltalk-80 and I happen to love it. (I also helped create it some years back.) Squeak is the implementation vehicle for Scratch, but I don't think knowing Squeak provides any special insights into Scratch. The object models and language semantics of Smalltalk-80 and Scratch are quite different. Scratch could be implemented in any sufficiently general and efficient programming language. It was just easier, faster, and more fun to build it in Squeak.
-- John
Last edited by johnm (2007-03-20 17:54:22)
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#8 2007-03-20 18:05:41
Re: Scratch Board
johnm wrote:
Scratch could be implemented in any sufficiently general and efficient programming language. It was just easier, faster, and more fun to build it in Squeak.
Is there any plan to document the project format, or is it just serialized Squeak objects? That is, if I were to implement something Scratch-like in Cocoa, would you be interested in an interchange format. Or if I wanted to write a converter to run Scratch animations in Flash or PyGame, would that be something that the Scratch project would support by documenting the format?
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#9 2007-03-20 21:21:14
Re: Scratch Board
Hi rolf,
Thank you for offering to make a schematic for a Scratch sensor board. I'd like to follow up on johnm's post to give more detail about the status of the Scratch sensor board we're hoping to ship soon. (This info should help you determine if you want to design a schematic/build a board once you receive the communication protocol spec via email.) We are fine-tuning and testing the current Scratch sensor board design to ensure that it works well for different types of PCs and Macs. If you're not planning on starting a workshop by the end of this month, you might be interested in checking out the board. Please email scratch-feedback at media.mit.edu and let us know how many you think you'll need. We'll explore the possibility of taking a check mailed for the cost of the parts + shipping ($30 US dollars depending on where you live) before we have a web-based payment system up and running. We hope that Scratch sensor board users will post tips and fun activities (via forums or other avenues). Please note that the web-based Scratch player on scratch.mit.edu website is not intended to work with Scratch projects that require a Scratch sensor board.
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#10 2007-03-21 07:42:34
Re: Scratch Board
Hi John and Amon (I assume user "millner" is Amon),
thank you very much for your support! I am going to send two EMails to scratch-support with my questions concerning hardware and software.
Scratch is really thrilling and I am enthusiastic about the possibilities it offers to children (and adults): learning-by-designing!
The pharma company Pfizer, whose german main office is in Karlsruhe, donated several used laptops to the city (PIII, 1GHz, 256MB). My childrens' base school in Karlsruhe wants to apply for these. Therefore my wife and me are currently writing a proposal for a comprehensive media development plan covering the next two years. We think that without such a media plan acting as a roadmap for all participants (learners, educators, responsibles) a sustainable implementation of computers as a creative tool is not achievable.
Your approach is the backbone of our rationale. The publications of Mitchel Resnick and others simply hit the bull's eye. We have taken the main ideas and principles from the computer clubhouse approach. By means of Scratch the children and we will try to discover some of the basic principles of informatics (contrasting pure application of computers).
The connection to external sensors and actors would broaden the possibilies and increase fun even more. In the beginning I would like to start with 10 boards.
I could keep you informed about our progress, if you like.
Regards, Rolf
Last edited by rolf (2007-03-21 07:45:47)
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#11 2007-03-21 08:51:36
Re: Scratch Board
Here's an update on the status of the Scratch Board:
We've finished the first manufacturing run of the Scratch Boards and are in the midst of doing some final testing and making modifications to Scratch to improve the user experience with the Scratch Boards. We plan to start selling the Scratch Boards in mid to late April. We post updates about the availability on this forum.
Robbie Berg for the Scratch Board Design Team
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#15 2007-05-16 06:40:04
Re: Scratch Board
Scratch is a very exciting development. Fun and powerful - a great combination.
I am in the process of designing a robot project for school pupils (10 to 12 year age group). Scratch looks to be an excellent way of introducing the concepts of building sequences of actions without the pain of traditional programming languages.
What I would like to do is to connect scratch to robot hardware rather than a scratchboard. You indicate on your website that you will be providing the source for scratch some time this year. I have a few questions
1. When will the source be available.
2. What would be your estimate of the difficulty of modifying the source to communicate with other hardware.
3. What development environment will be required to work on the source
4. Is the present serial protocol extensible to work with other hardware
Thanks for a great piece of software.
Jim
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#17 2007-08-29 00:34:52
Re: Scratch Board
Hi,
I've sent a request to scratch-feedback@media.mit.edu to get the serial protocol specifications but received not reply so far. Is it possible to get it ? If theses specs are open, could someone send them to me ?
Thanks in advance,
M
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#18 2007-09-11 20:53:09
Re: Scratch Board
After having fooled around somewhat with USB drivers for DOS (I'm an anachronism) I doubt that we will see the "serial protocol", nor will it help unless the appropriate drivers are also released. The question then is: in what form would the drivers be released? Which language? The ideal as far as I am concerned, since my Windows programming skills are *very* limited, would be in C to work in conjunction with the Linux version of Scratch when this is released.
How do others feel about this. The possibility of direct interaction with a Scratchboard remains an intriguing and tantalizing possibility.
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#19 2008-01-07 09:48:52
Re: Scratch Board
hi guys,
is there any update on the availability of the scratch board protocol. I've also emailed scratch-feedback@media.mit.edu and had no response.
I'm interested in enabling scratch board support in our own software ( 3D simulation environment)- so kids who learn with scratch and experiment with scratchbaords can migrate their skills easily.
Any information would be very much appreciated.
thanks
Phillip
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#20 2008-04-30 23:03:43
Re: Scratch Board
nintendogg wrote:
It is really a Scratch controler that you can use and program with Scratch and yes it works with any version of Scratch
The Scratch Board is not a controller in that sense, it has no outputs and can only control things within Scratch. The Scratch Board has light (photoresistor) touch (pushbutton) sound (small elcret microphone) and four resistance imputs. I forget, there might be more sensors.
The Scratch board is not a controller for things external to the computer.
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#21 2008-04-30 23:06:54
Re: Scratch Board
richiepoo wrote:
nintendogg wrote:
It is really a Scratch controler that you can use and program with Scratch and yes it works with any version of Scratch
The Scratch Board is not a controller in that sense, it has no outputs and can only control things within Scratch. The Scratch Board has light (photoresistor) touch (pushbutton) sound (small elcret microphone) and four resistance imputs. I forget, there might be more sensors.
The Scratch board is not a controller for things external to the computer.
The Scratch Board has a slider too (variable resistor slider) the values are variables on all or most of the sensors. (I forget hehe)
ROBOTICS!!!
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#22 2008-04-30 23:09:02
Re: Scratch Board
ipatt wrote:
After having fooled around somewhat with USB drivers for DOS (I'm an anachronism) I doubt that we will see the "serial protocol", nor will it help unless the appropriate drivers are also released. The question then is: in what form would the drivers be released? Which language? The ideal as far as I am concerned, since my Windows programming skills are *very* limited, would be in C to work in conjunction with the Linux version of Scratch when this is released.
How do others feel about this. The possibility of direct interaction with a Scratchboard remains an intriguing and tantalizing possibility.
I have no idea but i guess that they would be in Squeak Smalltalk. (That's what Scratch is written in) you might want to experement with Squeak.
iThink DOS SUX
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#23 2008-04-30 23:15:05
Re: Scratch Board
jimherd wrote:
Scratch is a very exciting development. Fun and powerful - a great combination.
I am in the process of designing a robot project for school pupils (10 to 12 year age group). Scratch looks to be an excellent way of introducing the concepts of building sequences of actions without the pain of traditional programming languages.
What I would like to do is to connect scratch to robot hardware rather than a scratchboard. You indicate on your website that you will be providing the source for scratch some time this year. I have a few questions
1. When will the source be available.
2. What would be your estimate of the difficulty of modifying the source to communicate with other hardware.
3. What development environment will be required to work on the source
4. Is the present serial protocol extensible to work with other hardware
Thanks for a great piece of software.
Jim
1. Google Scratch source code I haven't tried this but I forget where the source code is (I downloaded it somewhere)
2. I have no idea try looking at the Scratch Board drivers if you can get the source for them I think they're in Squeak
3. Squeak Smalltalk
4. I haven't seen the serial protocol but it is probably fairly easy to hack to other hardware
Robotics Rocks!!!!
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#24 2008-04-30 23:45:00
Re: Scratch Board
The Scratch source code is available here: http://scratch.mit.edu/pages/source. There is the main code, in Squeak Smalltalk, and the code for an extension, in C. The extension provides additional features for graphic and sound processing, and may be necessary for talking to the controller board as well.
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#25 2008-06-12 03:05:39
- piplupquaza
- Scratcher
- Registered: 2008-02-19
- Posts: 73
Re: Scratch Board
There is a forum on scratch boards now.
Look at the little dudes dance!!! Ultimate game for sonic fans here: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/piplupquaza/143340
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