We released Amphibian, a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA that converts Java code to blocks and vice versa. The initial codebase was branched from the Droplet Editor (used by Pencil Code, Code.org, etc.) that we modified to support various additional languages. Blanchard, J., Gardner-McCune, C., & Anthony, L. (2019, October). Amphibian: Dual-Modality Representation in Integrated Development…
Presenting at the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) 2019 Text languages are perceived by many computer science students as difficult, intimidating, and/or tedious in nature. Conversely, blocks-based environments are perceived as approachable, but many students see them as inauthentic. Bidirectional hybrid environments provide textual and blocks-based representations of the same code,…
We’re working on integrating WebAssembly via SpiderMonkey VM into Minetest, an open-source, Minecraft-inspired, voxel game engine written in C++ with game functionality and plugins written in Lua. Our long term goal is to allow a multitude of languages to be used to write plugins for Minetest to be used for computer science education. Our codebase…
We had the pleasure of working w/ UCF Camp Connect this summer. Every year UCF hosts various STEM related camps, workshops, and activities for K-12 students. From their website: “Camp Connect is a week-long day camp that introduces students to a variety of engineering disciplines such as Electrical, Computer, Industrial, Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil, Environmental, Construction,…
Last night we participated in Orlando Science School Elementary‘s “Family Technology Night.” This time we brought along an IR sensing teddy bear. The kids (and parents) really enjoyed seeing how cool/hot they were – and learning about different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. We presented the following exhibits: IR camera connected to Raspberry Pi 3…
Dilmer Valecillos documents his life as an indie game developer – the passion, the challenges, and the step-by-steps with Unity and Maya. The challenges include programming and API hurdles, life as an indie, and balancing work and family. He has recorded literally hundreds of videos in a video blog style series and hosted them on…
We joined The Parke House Academy for their STEM night this year. They had LEGOs, a human-powered snowcone maker, Code-a-Pillars, plastic bottle boats, an IR camera, block-coding, etc. We presented the following exhibits: IR camera connected to Raspberry Pi 3 Kano Pixel Kit w/ various custom programs CSFirst block coding Lightbot simple electronics circuits (button…
Local digital artist and musician, Ginger Leigh, spoke with the Girls in Coding Club (GCC) at Orlando Science School Elementary today. She presented some of her projects that she did for the Orlando Science Center, and presented an instrument with minimal coding in Processing.
Thank you to Full Sail University student and Cacti Council volunteer Patrick O’Connor for speaking with Bishop Moore High School programming students today. Patrick demoed previous projects and answered questions. Patrick O’Connor and Aroosh Bhakhri have agreed to mentor students Kathy Kong and Kris Buno with their VR CPR simulator, which they plan to demo…
“I don’t think science is hard to teach because humans aren’t ready for it, or because it arose only through a fluke, or because, by and large, we don’t have the brainpower to grapple with it. Instead, the enormous zest for science that I see in first-graders and the lesson from the remnant hunter-gatherers both…
