Alice 3D Authoring System (for Kids) from Carnegie Mellon University
Submitted by todd on Sun, 2006-12-03 22:34
Here's something that the techie-kid in your household with a new computer might find interesting.
Alice v2.0: Learn to Program Interactive 3D Graphics
This 3D authoring system created by the Stage3 Research Group at Carnegie Mellon University is a multi-platform (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows) Java-based Open Source application aimed at students in the middle school to college age range.
Earlier this year Electronic Arts agreed to help fund the development of Alice v3.0 and provide artwork (characters) for use in Alice.
Alice address both the
Alice address both the mechanical and sociological barriers that currently prevent many students from successfully learning to program a computer. Alice addresses the mechanical barriers to programming by making it much easier for students to create programs. Rather than having to correctly type commands according to obscure rules of syntax, students drag-and-drop words in a direct manipulation interface. This user interface ensures that programs are always well-formed. In addition, Alice reifies object-based programming by providing animated, on-screen 3D virtual objects.
This is really cool open
This is really cool open source software for Windows and Mac's. Earlier this year they announced that EA is onboard to develop Alice 3d version 3 and they are going to use SIMS characters in this new version (not yet available)! What a great way to get kids interested in programming, by using the most popular computer game ever created.