[IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Sugar Digest 2011-08-22

[Christoph Derndorfer]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 5:59 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>wrote:

> On 22.08.2011, at 17:50, Walter Bender wrote:
>
> > == Sugar Digest ==
> >
> > 1. The OLPC XO 1.75 machines (beta units) are starting to be
> > distributed to developers. This machine is ARM based, which means that
> > it will have superior battery life once all of the fine-tuning is
> > complete. It also means that it uses some different components, e.g.,
> > audio circuitry, so there is some driver work to be done. But so far,
> > so good.
> >
> > One of the nice things about the 1.75 is that the OLPC engineering
> > team threw in a few additional sensors. Saadia Husain Baloch got the
> > accelerometer working and I immediately wrote a Turtle Art plug-in
> > (included with v114). Saadia wrote a fun 'etch-a-sketch' program in
> > Turtle Art that works by shaking the machine.
> >
> > Not to be outdone, I added an enhancement to the Portfolio activity
> > while I was on a short flight last week. If you hit the left side of
> > the XO, it will advance to the next slide. If you hit the right side
> > of the XO, it will return to the previous slide. The person sitting
> > next to me on the plane told me, "That's the strangest thing I have
> > ever seen anyone do with a computer."
> >
> > The bottom line is the more sensors the better: we want to give young
> > learners more opportunities to observe and interactive with the
> > physical world.
>
> The accelerometer is fun to use indeed. I just made an Etoys project that
> lets you steer a ball by tilting the XO-1.75. Find a description and video
> at:
>
>
> http://croquetweak.blogspot.com/2011/08/squeak-etoys-on-arm-based-xo-175.html
>
> - Bert -
>

Very awesome stuff indeed!! :-)

Cheers,
Christoph

-- 
Christoph Derndorfer

editor, OLPC News [www.olpcnews.com]
volunteer, OLPC (Austria) [www.olpc.at]

e-mail: christoph at derndorfer.eu
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