Look there, http://swiki.ofset.org:8000/seaside/SBSuperSwiki and search with the French keyword 'Engrenage' (gear). There are four examples. I am not sure it still load in recent Etoys, you have to try.

Sorry I don't have direct url to give

Hilaire

On 06/07/2012 23:22, Steve Thomas wrote:

I got I asked my class to play LightBothttp://armorgames.com/play/2205/light-bot and then asked them:

"How this is like and not like "programming"

This lead into one kids responding its like "mabey small motors and gears" (wish I knew what was going on in her mind, I'll ask in the next class)

So I responded:

I was on the Battleship NJ (commissioned in 1943). They had a "computer" on board to calculate the angle and direction of the big guns and could hit a target miles away within a few yards!!! Pretty impressive when you have to consider they had to take into account the ships speed and direction, wind speed, waves and the recoil from the guns firing. The whole "computer" was built using gears which controlled BIG motors to move the gun.

Here's a pop quiz (you will be graded on this and it will go on your PERMANENT record :) *What is the oldest computer we know about?*

I then asked them to think about and email me an answer to:

*What is a computer?*

I then added the caveat, non-biological computer, as a bunch came back with the answer "the brain".

I found a nice video on a Lego version of the oldest know computer herehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPVCJjTNgk .

So I want to get them to try and build some adding machines (and I will see if we can find enough lego parts amonst us to do that as it would be best), but in case I can't, and just for fun.

Has anyone build a set of gears in Etoys or any other freely available program?

Thanks, Stephen

---

squeakland mailing list squeakland@squeakland.org http://lists.squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

Hi Steve,

Yes, we did experiment with gears in Etoys many years ago, and I think we tried one or two experiments with gears at the Open School.

This is a case where lots of the goodness of the gears idea lies in the physical world, and just giving kids a simulation of gears lacks "juice".

The gear models we did actually used collision detection to drive one gear by another, and this was a good set of things for the kids to think about. This would work better today (with more computing cycles available, etc.). One of the important things we never got around to in Etoys was to make an industrial strength collision detector (like the best ones used in video games) for both the macro graphic objects and also for the particle system. Having one of these as a basic facility would make a big difference in what could be thought about and attempted.

Another fun thing at this level is to make "ratchets" and then "Feynman" engines where particle energy exchanges from random collisions will nonetheless drive the "engines" in the direction they can go.

Cheers,

Alan

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From: Steve Thomas sthomas1@gosargon.com To: squeakland squeakland@squeakland.org; iaep iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 2:22 PM Subject: [IAEP] Has anyone build a set of gears in Etoys or any other freely available program?

I got I asked my class to play LightBot and then asked them: "How this is like and not like "programming"

This lead into one kids responding its like "mabey small motors and gears"  (wish I knew what was going on in her mind, I'll ask in the next class)

So I responded: I was on the Battleship NJ (commissioned in 1943).  They had a "computer" on board to calculate the angle and direction of the big guns and could hit a target miles away within a few yards!!!  Pretty impressive when you have to consider they had to take into account the ships speed and direction, wind speed, waves and the recoil from the guns firing.  The whole "computer" was built using gears which controlled BIG motors to move the gun.

...

Here's a pop quiz (you will be graded on this and it will go on your PERMANENT record :) What is the oldest computer we know about?

I then asked them to think about and email me an answer to:

What is a computer? I then added the caveat, non-biological computer, as a bunch came back with the answer "the brain".

I found a nice video on a Lego version of the oldest know computer here.

So I want to get them to try and build some adding machines (and I will see if we can find enough lego parts amonst us to do that as it would be best), but in case I can't, and just for fun.

Has anyone build a set of gears in Etoys or any other freely available program?

Thanks, Stephen _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Thanks Alan.

On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 12:29 AM, Alan Kay alan.nemo@yahoo.com wrote:

P.S.

I vaguely recall that someone did an Etoy model of the Antikythera ... (might be findable on the web somewhere)

Karl Ramberg pointed me to: http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/sw/ameso/ which may be what your are recalling.

Going a little deeper, it would be good for children to think about: *Computing is inventing a kind of machine that can carry and manipulate representations of ideas.* The machine can be made from physical or symbolic materials.

I really like the inclusion of "inventing" in the definition. I'll see what the kids come up with and then weave this in.

For example, the abacus -- which vastly predates the Antikythera -- is also a computing machine. And so is Algebra ...

Cheers,

Alan

---

*From:* Steve Thomas sthomas1@gosargon.com *To:* squeakland squeakland@squeakland.org; iaep < iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org> *Sent:* Friday, July 6, 2012 2:22 PM *Subject:* [IAEP] Has anyone build a set of gears in Etoys or any other freely available program?

I got I asked my class to play LightBothttp://armorgames.com/play/2205/light-bot and then asked them:

"How this is like and not like "programming"

This lead into one kids responding its like "mabey small motors and gears" (wish I knew what was going on in her mind, I'll ask in the next class)

So I responded:

I was on the Battleship NJ (commissioned in 1943). They had a "computer" on board to calculate the angle and direction of the big guns and could hit a target miles away within a few yards!!! Pretty impressive when you have to consider they had to take into account the ships speed and direction, wind speed, waves and the recoil from the guns firing. The whole "computer" was built using gears which controlled BIG motors to move the gun.

Here's a pop quiz (you will be graded on this and it will go on your PERMANENT record :) *What is the oldest computer we know about?*

I then asked them to think about and email me an answer to:

*What is a computer?*

I then added the caveat, non-biological computer, as a bunch came back with the answer "the brain".

I found a nice video on a Lego version of the oldest know computer herehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPVCJjTNgk .

So I want to get them to try and build some adding machines (and I will see if we can find enough lego parts amonst us to do that as it would be best), but in case I can't, and just for fun.

Has anyone build a set of gears in Etoys or any other freely available program?

Thanks, Stephen

---

IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

On 07/07/2012 06:19, Alan Kay wrote:

Yes, we did experiment with gears in Etoys many years ago, and I think we tried one or two experiments with gears at the Open School.

This is a case where lots of the goodness of the gears idea lies in the physical world, and just giving kids a simulation of gears lacks "juice".

Agree. Once at a science feast, we used with kids physical gears and emulated gears with Etoys, but we realized simulated gears did not make much sense.

May be with simulated gears it could be a little better. I am curious about your simulation with collision detection.

Hilaire