Alice v2.0

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Alice v2.0

• Lakaiya Downs
• John Harding
• March 13, 2007
• Professor Schmitt

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Abstract

• Alice is a 3-D object-oriented educational
  programming environment
• Created to provide the best possible firsthand
  exposure to programming
• For students ranging form middle schoolers to
  college students.

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Outline

• What is Alice
• History
• Who uses Alice
• Goals of Alice
• The Programming Environment
• Creating Your World
• Animations
• Methods
• Scripting
• Requirements
• Conclusion
• References

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What is Alice?

• 3-D object-oriented educational programming
  language
• Drag drop environment is used to create 3D
  computer animations
• Designed to be a student's first exposure to
  object-oriented programming
• Students control the behavior of 3D objects and
  characters in a virtual world

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What is Alice?

• Includes its own development environment (IDE)
• Includes built-in tutorials
• Supports object-oriented, event driven
  programming
• Designed around storytelling

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History

• Originally began at the University of Virginia
  Computer Science Department
• Randy Pausch was faculty at the UVA in the early
  90s.
• In 1997, the project moved to Carnegie Mellon
  with Professor Pausch
• In 1999, Alice v2.0 began, and is completely new
  software, with the core of  the new system
  written in Java.

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Who uses Alice?

• Teachers at 50 colleges and 40 high schools are
  now using Alice to teach Intro Computer Science
  classes

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Goals

• Help to make it easier to learn programming
• Addresses the mechanical barriers to programming
  by making it much easier for students to create
  programs
• To make programming more interesting to girls
• By supporting storytelling, which motivates boys
  and girls to learn more

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The Programming Environment

• Students drag-and-drop commands directly in the
  interface
• Work out lists of actions that must go into the
  programs to tell the story
• Users select characters
• Create an animated movie, which characters move
  about and interact in an imagined 3D world
• Learn how to break a large problem into smaller
  pieces
• http//www.alice.org/community/

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(No Transcript)
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Creating Your World

• Start your world with a basic Template
• Includes a ground, a light source, and a camera
• Then add Objects from the Object Gallery
• Each object includes properties and methods
• Adjust the objects Properties
• Such as color, opacity, skin texture, isShowing
• Objects from the gallery include many Methods
• Move, turn, resize, say (speech bubble), play
  sound, ...
• Advanced users can add their own properties
  methods

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Animation

• To create an animation, first add an Events
• When the world starts
• When a key is typed
• When the mouse is click on something
• Set each event to trigger a certain Method
• All your objects, camera, and light source
  include methods
• Play your World to see if it works correctly
• A when the world starts event will start
  automatically
• Use the mouse keyboard to trigger the events
  methods
• Do the animations work as expected?

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Methods

• Many methods have parameters to adjust the
  animation
• Movement direction, distance, duration
• Combine methods into your own new methods
• Do in order, Do together
• If/else, Loop, While
• For all in order, For all together
• Wait
• Your methods can have parameters and variables
• Parameters allow methods to be customized when
  used
• Use variables to keep track of numbers
• Use Boolean variables to control If/else and
  While loops

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Scripting

• As methods are created using drag and drop, Alice
  automatically creates the scripting in Jython
• Alice originally a Python scripting language that
  was the core component of Alice development
  environment.
• Alice v2.0 was rewritten into Java and a
  reduction on its dependence of scripting
• Still supports a scripting environment using the
  Jython Python implementation as its interpreter
• Scripts in Alice have access to Alices objects,
  Python module library, and a large part of the
  Java API

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Example Script

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Requirements

• Operating system requirements
•    Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP
•    Macintosh OS 10.3 or 10.4
• Minimum PC hardware requirements
•    A Pentium running at 500 MHz or better
•    a VGA graphics card capable of high (16 bit)
  color
•    128 MB of RAM
•    video resolution of 1024x768
•    A sound card
• Recommended PC hardware requirements
•    A Pentium running at 1.0 GHz or better
•    16 MB 3D video card (TNT, i810, Rage 128,
  GeForce, Radeon equivalent or better)
•    256 MB of RAM

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Conclusion

• Alice is design for teaching beginner
  programmers, and getting them interested in
  Computer Science
• Different approach to teaching object-oriented
  and event-driven programming
• 3-D environment is highly visual so you can
  immediately see results
• Easy to create a programs without errors
• Students are less likely to become frustrated
  with learning computer syntax

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Any Questions?

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References

• Rocco, Daniel. (2006). Alice. Retrieved March 8,
  2007. http//www.westga.edu/drocco/alice/scriptin
  g.html
• Sohn, Emily.(2006). Programming with Alice.
  Retrieved March 6, 2007. http//www.sciencenewsfo
  rkids.org
• Alice v2.0. (2007). Retrieved March 8, 2007.
  http//www.alice.org/
• Alice Community Forum.(2007). Jython Alice.
  Retrieved March 8, 2007. http//www.alice.org/com
  munity/showthread.php?t612