User:Tonyforster

Me

http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/ blog, random thoughts, Turtle Art samples

http://www.freewebs.com/schoolgamemaker/ game programming and learning

forster at ozonline dot com dot au

Interests: Activities which maximise the opportunity for self-directed learning: low floor, wide walls and high ceiling with particular emphasis on the walls and ceiling. My Sugar favourites: Turtleart, Scratch, Etoys. Game Maker still my Windows favourite.

Currently user testing Turtleart and Sliderule, experimenting with Pippy. Supporting the Timor Leste deployment.

Preschool student Activities, some links

Radia Perlman in the 70s when at student at MIT did extensive experiments with preliterate children and the LOGO turtle and built a number of interfaces for them. She also spent some time at Xerox PARC and did many similar experiments with chldren 3 years on up.

http://www.formatex.org/micte2006/virtual/pdf/582.pdf see fig 3 with plastic cards showing visual images of turtle commands

http://www.formatex.org/micte2006/virtual/ppt/582.ppt similar image

http://logothings.wikispaces.com/ towards the end, photo of Radia Perlman's Button Box for Pre-Schoolers

http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~mcnerney/personal-ubicomp.pdf more discussion than the above

Turtle Art - text free

To what extent could pre-literate children use Turtle Art?

Are graphics on blocks really better than text?

Does keeping text labels help develop literacy?

What graphics are best?

Some features, eg. the heap are unlikely to be used by pre-literate children, should they be omitted or retained with text labels?

The following graphic is a discussion starter

or another [suggested layout]]

Text-less outdoor lesson for Turtle Art

Sliderule

• http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2010/09/pippy-sliderule.html Pippy File:Pippy sliderule.doc
• http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2010/09/turtle-sliderule.html Turtle art
• http://www.freewebs.com/schoolgamemaker/#lobject Game maker
• File:Slideruletute.pdf tutorial

Software Freedom Day Melbourne 2010

File:Softwarefreedomday10.pdf presentation

http://luv.asn.au/sfd2010/ photos

Sea Surface Temperature Mapping

Sea surface temperature mapping, inspired by http://oceanpc.org . Described here is a program to read and display the temperature data which is available at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/sst.html

The data format is described at ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ersstv3b/README

The first record in the file ersst_v3b_2010_2019.asc , the 2010 to 2019 data set, reads:

-9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999   -19    13    18    11     7    25    64   132   255   427   607   791   990  1198  1408  1616  1816  1999  2149  2258  2327  2360  2365  2355  2347  2359  2393  2443  2500  2568  2654  2736  2789  2826  2869  2904  2911  2903 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999  1489  1432 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999   713 -9999   656   715   780   796   744   669   596   476   298   156   113    70  -134  -180  -180  -180  -180

-9999 represents land, the other numbers are degrees C x100 This record represents a line running from the south pole through to the north pole in 2 degree increments at longtitude 0 for the first month and year. The next record is for lattitude 2 degrees east and so on.

Sample Pippy(Python) program

This Pippy(Python) mapping program is supplied as a starter and as inspiration for further investigation

File:Write Activity sst.odt Pippy code as open office doc. Download and open in Journal. Copy from the Write session, paste into Pippy and run.

Alternatively download this content bundle File:Sst.xol to the journal, starting the bundle from the journal installs the bundle as off line web content which is accessible from the Browse home page as sst in the Science category. This content includes the Python source and a sample data file.

Challenges

• Display the other months and years in the file
• Display the month and year in the title bar
• Animate the display
• Do a legend
• Display the temperature at the cursor
• Map other data
• Error checking
• Display partly corrupted data sets without crashing
• Create models of ocean or atmosphere
• More ideas at http://oceanpc.org , http://marinedataliteracy.org/index.html and http://data.worldbank.org/

(This program has also been done in Game Maker on the Windows OS)

Reflashing Sugar

Unsigned XO1

See

• Get a developer key and unlock your XO
• Download the OS image (e.g. osxxx.img) and its CRC file (e.g. osxxx.crc) to USB
• Press escape at power on for the OK prompt

 probe-usb copy-nand disk:\osNNN.img

Will not work if there are 2 partitions, [1]

To install from Open Firmware on an unlocked XO-1, download the .onu and .uim files and run:

 ok update-nand u:\osXX.onu

Unsigned XO1.5

see

• Get a developer key and unlock your XO
• Download osxxx.zd, osxxx.zsp.fs.zip, (seem to only need the zd file)
• rename the zip file to fs.zip
• Pressing the "check mark"(tick) game key, Turn on the laptop, (don't seem to need the tick)
• press ESC (X) to get to the OFW prompt "ok",

 fs-update u:\osxxx.zd

Signed builds

see

• Download osxxx.img, osxxx.img.fs.zip to the top directory of a USB drive
• (osxxx.zd,osxxx.zsp.fs.zip on XO1.5),
• Rename the zip file to fs.zip
• hold the 4 game keys at boot

Deployment key signed builds

http://dev.laptop.org.au/projects/xo-au/wiki/Installing_signed_builds

Nand blaster XO1.5

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Nandblaster_for_XO-1.5

Dodo mobile broadband on the XO

Connected to the Dodo mobile broadband network with the Huawei E160E

• username my username
• password my password
• number *99#
• APN dodolns1
• PIN blank
• PUK blank

(best with power management turned off)

Sugar security

Some Activities are 'protected', that is they can't be deleted. This also means that the Activity can't be downgraded or crossgraded to the same revision number.

To achieve this you need to delete the Activity's directory in

/home/olpc/Activities

This is easily done in older builds in Gnome but newer builds have a hidden and protected Activities directory

sudo gedit

allows you to edit files but not delete

chmod 777 ~/Activities

unprotects the directory but it is still hidden, in the file manager nautilus check show hidden files

Enabling debug output

Edit /home/olpc/.sugar/debug and uncomment :

 export SUGAR_LOGGER_LEVEL=debug

Starting Gnome

If not in my settings

echo gnome > /home/olpc/.olpc-active-desktop

and restart

Text dungeon

A text dungeon game for literacy and numeracy

(Will transfer this page to Activities/Textdungeon if it gets to a working version.)

The dungeon File:Sampledungeon.doc description file is plain text and can be edited with the Write Activity. It is purposefully unencrypted and easily edited. 'Cheating' by reading or altering the dungeon is encouraged.

File:Textdungeon.doc is a version of the program's Python code which works from the command line

File:Textdungeon1.xo is a Sugarised install bundle, works Sugar 0.88 - 0.92

The intention is that children would both play and create dungeons to develop math, literacy and problem solving skills:

Playing the game

• visualise 2D spaces (could extend to 3D or even 4D)
• navigate compass directions N E S W and relationship to right, left
• text literacy
• can include subject related content
• problem solving

Making/editing/reading a dungeon file

• all the above plus
• Cartesian coordinates
• variables
• word processing skills
• programming like skills
• create in any language

Dungeon file format

[l,room x,room y] your location

[i, item, item ....] your inventory

[u,room x, room y, item, room x, .....] location of items

[d,room x, room y, direction, locked, room x, .....] status of wall/door segments, unlisted segments are locked, doors can be asymmetric

[r,room x,room y,direction,item which unlocks,open text,closed text,text when opening] one entry for each unlockable door

For example, the Sampledungeon represented above is described by these strings

[u,0,0,lamp,0,1,key,1,1,sword,1,0,princess] #key in room 0,1 , sword in room 1,1 ,princess room 1,0

[d,0,0,0,0,0,1,2,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,3,0,1,0,0,0] #room 0,0 north door open, room 0,1 east door locked etc

Keyboard commands

h - help

f - forward

r - right

l - left

b - list backpack contents

p item - pick up item

d item - drop item

u item - use item

q - quit