Clinton Blackmore wrote in to share Enchanting, a visual programming tool that uses Scratch (as well as LeJOS firmware on the NXT brick) to create a more intuitive and powerful interface than Lego’s Mindstorms software can manage. The software is free and open source, and is being developed for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
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This is terrific news!
I have been involved in First Lego League for several years and know from experience that the current MindStrorms programmimg language (based on National Instrument’s LabView) is horribly, horribly buggy and leaves the kids with no basis to make the next step to the real, text-based languages.
MIT’s Scratch, on the other hand, is a brilliantly executed first step for young programmers, that builds skills that are directly applicable to hardware control in ‘C’ and its decendants. My son is only 10, but is a wiz at Scratch programming (all self-taught, by the way). He will have great fun with Enchanting.
Bravo!