There is development within Etoys involved. But at the tile scripting level, not necessarily at the Smalltalk level.
Stephen
On Tuesday, February 18, 2014, Serge Stinckwich serge.stinckwich@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
is there any Smalltalk development involved in this project ?
Regards,
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 11:23 PM, Steve Thomas sthomas1@gosargon.com wrote:
Kathleen,
Great feedback, thanks. Below is an updated version:
Many children can not communicate verbally whether due to nonverbal
autism
or some other factor. While there are many catalogs and websites with adaptive equipment and software but the prices are high. There is a OLPC deployment in Uraguay where a student uses his stuffed animal as an input device for using an XO and Etoys. We would like to build on this to
make it
easier and lower cost or these children and their parents to communicate
and
use computers. The software would be free and OpenSource and the
hardware
to hack a Stuffed Animal could potentially repurpose old keyboards [2] or under $10 by repurposing a used USB game controller (free if kids donate their old ones).
In the first project a student would design and document how to hack a stuffed animal to be used as an input device similar to a joystick or
arrow
and a few other keys to allow a nonverbal child to use their favorite stuffed animal as an input device.
Level: beginner Skills required: Maker skills. To Hack a stuffed animal. Etoys (If
student
knows Scratch, they can learn the skills needed in Etoys for this
project)
In the second project a student would design a set of picture boards that could be navigated using a joystick or arrow keys and arrow and few other keys. The project would also allow a parent or teacher to simply add and re-arrange pictures using a webcam, imported pictures or simple drawings that can be made using Etoys[1]. Etoys runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OS and is one of the core applications in the OLPC XO.
Level: beginner Skills required: Etoys (If student knows Scratch, they can learn the
skills
needed in Etoys for this project)
Mentor: Stephen Thomas sthomas1@gosargon.com
[1] http://squeakland.org/ [2] http://www.instructables.com/id/Hacking-a-USB-Keyboard/?ALLSTEPS
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 11:23 AM, Harness, Kathleen <
kharness@illinois.edu>
wrote:
Steve, You may want to emphasize in the application that this is a low cost adaptive technology. There are many catalogs and websites with adaptive equipment and software but the prices are high. A cost comparison might
be
persuasive. Regards, Kathleen ________________________________ From: etoys-dev-bounces@squeakland.org [
etoys-dev-bounces@squeakland.org]
on behalf of Steve Thomas [sthomas1@gosargon.com] Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 12:19 AM To: Bert Freudenberg Cc: smalltalk-gsoc-mentors@googlegroups.com; etoys dev; Paolo Bonzini;
The
general-purpose Squeak developers list
Subject: Re: [etoys-dev] [gsoc-mentors] [GSoC ideas] Squeak/Etoys
Many children can not communicate verbally whether due to nonverbal
autism
or some other factor. There is a OLPC deployment in Uraguay where a
student
uses his stuffed animal as an input device for using an XO and Etoys.
We
would like to build on this to make it easier and cheaper for these
children
and their parents to communicate and use computers.
In the first project a student would design and document how to hack a stuffed animal to be used as an input device similar to a joystick or
arrow
and a few other keys to allow a nonverbal child to use their favorite stuffed animal as an input device.
Level: beginner Skills required: Maker skills. To Hack a stuffedSerge Stinckwich
UCBN & UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC) Every DSL ends up being Smalltalk http://www.doesnotunderstand.org/