Scratch

http://www.punbb-hosting.com/forums/Mod_Central/index.php 

not done yet! still messing around with it all 

Yeah, sure. Er, just add a thing that says that I resigned.

http://byob.berkeley.edu/

And Hi! I haven't been active in a while, and I'm not allowed to use dropbox. Could you send me an e-mail so I can catch up? (I was on holiday a lot)

Sperry! Now you can fill my spot as totally random person!

Just so you know, Sperry, I quit. But I'll still stay around here while I program flash.

sparks wrote:

what don't your parents like about it? anything I can do to convince them? It'll be hard for you to continue contributing to Panther if our main communication is cut off... How come you coud use it before?

They didn't know about it then... (sneaky sneaky). And no there isn't any way.

@Sep: I know.

Dear sparks (and johnnydean), we regret to inform you that, if you do not say otherwise in the next few days, your accountd on Mod Central will be deleted for inactivity. Thank you, Sep.

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SeptimusHeap wrote:

SeptimusHeap wrote:

SeptimusHeap wrote:

Never mind, I have a flash game to make! (Yay!)

But, one more favor, please? Can I have the 'Tanks - PLEASE TEST WITH PANTHER' project in the dropbox projects folder? I deleted dropbox, you know, for you guy's corporate privacy XD.

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This.

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This.

OH NO THIS THREAD IS ON PAGE 2!!!!!!!!
Not. Good.
Panther might be getting less popular.

so, as a relevant and interesting conversation topic, Panther is thinking about branching out into a version that lets you program robots and control hardware! This is still in developmental stages, but will let users program microchips from Picaxe, who I have links with and have given us permisson to go ahead with it!

Using the familiar block like layout, we plan to make the picaxe chip more acessable to the younger age group. Picaxe chips are cheap, avaliable worldwide and only require three resistors as external components to make it tick! It can control robots, projects, servo motors, has i2C connections that let it work with dataloggers and counters, timers and supports a host of inputs and outputs from easy to use buttons and LED's to variable resistors and speakers. I have personally used picaxe to control a Hexapod robot (6-legged) and have also used it to make a little flashing light, meaning that it's a good as Scratch at being easy for beginners and complex enough for the advanced users.

One reason why Clive Seager (owner of revolution educations ltd and creator of the picaxe chip) is eager to see our final program is that picaxe chips are used around the world in schools to teach children about hardware programming. They are usually aimed at people of around 16 or so. Why not lower the age boundry? Currently children find the current syntax of picaxe basic difficult to understand, unlike many of you reading this, this simple program below will be confusing to them as they have never seen a programming language before.

start:
high 1
pause 1000
goto waiter

waiter:
if pin1 = 1 then goto turnoff
goto waiter

turnoff:
low 1
pause 5000
goto start:

To explain, this program turns on output 1 using the high command. This could be a light. It then waits one second (1000 milliseconds) and goes to a new header (like a hat) that constantly checks if input 1 (a switch) has the value 1 or 0. If it's one, it goes to the final header that switches the light off for 5 seconds and then goes back to the start.

With panther, this same script can be made to look a lot more attractive and make a lot more sense:


Now I don't know about you, but that looks a lot easier to me. Picaxe basic is not the most difficult language to learn, in fact it was my first and it is amazingly simple considering what can be achieved. However, using the blocks, you don't need to carry the entire language around in your head, I remember having trouble with spaces in this one when I first started. Using Panther, the text is already there, leaving nothing but the numbers to do. It also takes a leaf out of scratch's book and uses colours to make it all easier to read. Not only this, but panther will have a complete syntax checker that we're nicking from the current program editor that will tell you where the error is!

The finished project gets compiled into .bas format, and is then coded into hexadecimal and sent to the microchip through a cheap, easy to buy download port (USB).

We're very excited that Picaxe has given us the oppertunity to do this, I think using Panther to program robots and other hardware will not only be brilliant fun, it will also lower the age boudry for children wanting to make their very own electric dice or small turtle robot! So please, comment, ask questions, I'd love to hear what our customers think!

Last edited by sparks (2010-08-25 16:59:43)

DIY - MMOG
Does anyone want to make this in Panther, using a faster system than Scratch, maybe URL reading and not mesh?

sparks wrote:

and goes to a new header (like a hat)

I was a little jolted when I read that, because I'd never really thought of explaining gotos and labels in terms of hat blocks.  Then I was disappointed when you didn't actually do it that way.

I read the post where you explained why not, and why you have separate IF and ENDIF blocks, but you've ended up programming at a very low level of abstraction.  Why have gotos at all?

WAIT UNTIL [[PIN 1] = <1>]

That's the Scratchly way to do it.  Yes, you'd have to learn how to compile that into code that will run on the chip, but that learning is what would really make this a worthwhile project for you!

You raise the question (implicitly) of what it is that makes Scratch easy to learn.  Is it just the brightly colored boxes around each line of code?  Or is it the graphical representation of looping, the multithreaded model of evaluation, and more generally the use of graphics to convey meaning?

I'm not saying this to discourage the project, which I think is very cool.  But I think it's within your powers to do it right -- to maintain the high level of abstraction of Scratch programs.

EDIT:  Think about inventing a BROADCAST <foo> AND STOP SCRIPT block (stop this script) -- or you could even call it GO TO SCRIPT <foo> if you want.  Then use hat blocks as the labels.  (But I still think it'd be even better to avoid goto altogether.)

P.S.  What about subroutines?  What you really want are custom blocks!  And ones written in Panther would be compilable into what the chip needs, unlike ones written in Squeak. 

Last edited by bharvey (2010-08-26 10:53:34)