Scratch

That sounds good 

The big question is, should sensor boards be considered an advanced topic? I think that any Scratcher who has one shouldn't be intimidated by it. There are some advanced things you can do with it (I've never used one, actually, but I'm recalling something Chalkmarrow did a while ago with animated moths) but at its heart I think it's a natural extension of Scratch into the real world. If you ask me, I think that Sensor Boards should be renamed "Extending Scratch"...it might get more traffic from modders and people using the Scratch Connections protocol. Then again, these things are advanced topics.

I think it's worth it- very few Scratchers even have sensor boards.

I don't agree: Sensor boards is a subject that isn't too big, but big enough that it wouldn't fit into Advanced Topics or All About Scratch that well. Anyway, Sensor Boards gets posts every few days, and it's nice having a whole place to discuss sensor boards.    (Of course, this is all just my sole opinion  )

I just don't think that it would work very well if Sensor Boards got put into another forum. 

Last edited by Jonathanpb (2010-11-10 23:32:09)

what are sensor boards?

Yeah. It's never been a particularly high-volume topic...

I always thought that "sensor board" was a bit too narrow, and that it probably should have also encompassed the whole field of external sensors, Arduino, etc.  The problem with that of course is that those are fairly advanced topics, which is why ericr et al. put together the helpful scratchconnections wiki (which unfortunately has been choked by spambots of late).

So, I would suggest either deleting the topic and let its contents roam free range under the "advanced topics" board (much in the way posts about "mods" do), or generalize the topic to include all types of interaction with the physical world (sensor board, Arduino, other open source hardware, wedo, etc.)  I think I would vote for the latter.

just my $0.02

I think that very few users even have one so I don't think it could hurt too much. Maybe anything relating to this could go into Advanced Topics or something. I also think there should be a way for scratchers to have projects interact with iTouches. I think a few more people have those 

I personally don't feel Sensor Boards forum should be removed. Remember the Educators Forum? That didn't get much attention (to my memory). But of course you guys turned it into a whole website by itself to make it better. However, I don't think that would be doable with the Sensor Boards forum.

I feel that it's important that the Scratch community recognizes that there are uses to use external sensors in the real world to interact with Scratch projects. And removing the forum and/or making external sensor topics go into the Advanced Topics forum would really make that fade away a bit. (However changing the forum title to "External Scratch Sensors" would be nice, after all there are not just PicoBoards/Scratch Boards, but also LEGO WeDo kits, joy-stick stuff, etc. etc.)

Just because few people post, doesn't mean that we should remove it.

In addition I really wouldn't consider Sensor Boards to be an advanced topic. Using LEGO WeDo for example is just about as complicated as installing Scratch on a slow computer.    And I don't think either of them deserve to be in "Advanced Topics", mixed in with all of the other Scratch Modifications and such.

Lightnin wrote:

We've been talking about ways to clean up the forums a bit in the moderator's forum lately.

*cough* removemiscellaneous *cough* Lol jk :3

[EDIT: It's fun adding Scratch Wiki links to posts xD]

Last edited by Lucario621 (2010-11-20 10:19:01)

sparks wrote:

I don't know... A sensor board question would then either have to go in advanced topics or in all about scratch depending.

I think it would be nice if Scratch advertised the picoboards a little, the more people have them, the more board projects there are, the more people will want them, springing this forum section back into life, and also allowing users to experience the added fun of the picoboard. Is there any way for the picocricket people to sell them at a discount to scratch users (promo code or scratch login)? The price holds back a lot of purchases as the $50 (around £25 I bought mine for) is actually quite a lot of money for a young user.

I asked for one, and I couldn't. Reason: price. Same with T-shirts.