Recently, I came across a forum post somewhere that mentioned the PicoBoard (formerly called a Scratch Board) worked in Linux. So, I set off to see just how easy it would be to get my PicoBoard working on Ubuntu 9.10.

Picoboards provide external sensors that feed input from the real-world into Scratch. The sensors are light, sound, resistance, button clicks, and slide control. And they’re a blast to use. I highly recommend them.

First stop, the PicoBoard driver download page. First the good news. There must be people requesting Linux drivers becasue the page supplies the ftdi_sio Serial to USB kernel driver as a download.

The bad news is that PicoCricket, the company behind the PicoBoard, seems to be afraid of Linux. Note the following screenshot with the “friendly” disclaimers.

I’m all for unsupported software, but a little effort goes a long way.

No Driver Download Required

The driver file on the download page is actually the FTDI USB Single Port Serial Converter. And if you visit the Sourceforge page for the project, you’ll find this advice from the previous project maintainer, Bill Ryder:

Use the most up to date linux kernel. This means 2.6.x or at least 2.4.30. The driver is included. I only ever use 2.6.x kernels so if you are using 2.4.x you are on your own. The driver is marked experimental at the moment. But I’m going to change that because it isn’t experimental any more.

Still, Scratch wasn’t detecting my PicoBoard. Though Linux was detecting the PicoBoard when I plugged it in the USB Port.

Load the Module

The ftdi_sio module is included with the kernel, but it wasn’t loaded for me. Here’s the command to load it:

sudo modprobe ftdi_sio

Now make sure the PicoBoard is plugged in and restart Scratch. The dmesg command is your friend here. It will give you feedback about how Linux is seeing the board. Here’s the last few lines of my dmesg output:

[451394.964027] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
[451395.140265] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[451395.144909] pl2303 4-1:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[451395.164947] usb 4-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[451470.917714] USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
[451470.917840] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
[451470.917843] ftdi_sio: v1.5.0:USB FTDI Serial Converters Driver

The first four lines is the kernel detecting the device. Then remaining lines appeared when I loaded the ftdi_sio module.

A sample script

Here’s a quick script to test out the PicoBoard. Cameron is going to love this, especially when we combine it with the webcam support.

If you run into problems, I can’t say that I will have the answer, but I’ll definitely try. Feel free to ask for support.

Scratch 2.0 features support for mobile devices, social media, group authoring, and web-based remixing.

Too bad Scratch 2.0 doesn’t exist yet. However, if the MIT team wins the Digital Media and Learning competition, those are the proposed features for the next generation of Scratch.

Andres Monroy-Hernandez from the Scratch team talks about the award in a forum post, here. The text of the competition submissoin at Digital Media and Learning is here: http://dmlcompetition.net/pligg/story.php?title=241.

Do you need to overcome security restrictions in your computer lab that prevent you from installing Scratch onto the workstations? Or maybe, you always want to ensure you have access to a working installation of Scratch.

Thankfully, Scratch will run on a usb flash drive and the Scratch download page provides a zip file that you can extract right onto the drive. You’ll need to look carefully for the link to the zip file. It’s buried in body copy.

Mac Users can install the dmg file to your flash drive.

Download the zip file and extract it to your flash drive. By default, you’ll extract the files to a Scratch folder on the flash drive.

To open Scratch go your USB drive , open the Scratch folder, and double click on the scratch.exe file.

Add Scratch to PortableApps

PortableApps.com provides a convenient way for users to run many popular open source applications, such as OpenOffice.Org and Firefox from a flash drive. The suite provides a menu of applications when you click on the PortableApps.com icon in the Windows System Tray.

While the applications available directly from http://www.PortableApps.com have their own installers, adding Scratch to the Portable Apps menu is as simple as moving the Scratch program files to the right folder on the flash drive.

The PortableApps suite creates a PortableApps folder on the root of the flash drive with all the applications listed in a subfolder of the PortableApps folder.
To make Scratch appear on the menu, extract the Scratch program files to the PortableApps folder; for example, E:\PortableApps\Scratch.

To make the PortableApps menu display the Scratch icon, open the PortableApps menu then select Options > Refresh App Icons.

That’s a quick little hack. Anyone up for creating a real portable app installer, which would optimize Scratch for the flash drive?

This information adapted and reposted from chapter 2 of Scratch 1.4 Beginner’s Guide.

I often hear people opine about how today’s youth are wired at birth, but are they fluent? According to the Computer Research Association, enrollment in U.S. based computer science degrees is down 46% between 2003 and 2006.

The question becomes what are we going to do about it because so much of our future personal, professional, and national security depends on having competent technologists.

From the Wired story Darpa: U.S. Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk:

Darpa’s now hoping someone, somewhere, can come up with a way to make future philosophy majors change course. And they want to get ‘em while they’re young: Darpa insists that programs be “targeted to middle and high school students, and include methods “to maintain a positive, long-term presence in a student’s education.”

A long-term presence that includes evenings and weekends. Rather than incorporate computer-based activities into academics, Darpa wants the programs to be extracurricular, “perhaps as an after school activity, weekend, or summer event.”

Darpa is a U.S. Pentagon research group that has an obvious concern for U.S. security, and training 21st century geeks is a large part of our future security. This sounds like a perfect call to arms for Scratch or programs like Scratch that aim to make young people creators instead of raw consumers.

More importantly, Darpa wants buy-in beyond academics. It’s not that formal education isn’t necessary or event good; it’s that we shouldn’t rely on other people to be the sole educators of our young people. It’s why I think the open source community, Linux geeks in particular, are key adopters of Scratch.

Tell me what think.

Title: Community Scratch Day 2010
Location: Your Community
Link out: Click here
Description: From the Scratch website: “Scratch Day is a worldwide network of gatherings, where people come together to meet other Scratchers, share projects and experiences, and learn more about Scratch.”

Are you planning an event?

Date: 2010-05-22

MIT will host a Scratch conference from August 11 – 14, 2010 at the MIT campus. Registration opens March 15, 2010. Call for proposals closes on February 1, 2010.

Visit the conference page for more information.

Computer programming has a marketing problem, if you believe what the National Science Foundation says. The NSF asserts that people like marketers and journalists need computer science skills; in other words computer science is not just for science and technology nerds anymore.

From an NSF press release:

Do only computer scientists need an education in computer science? In today’s innovation-driven economy, the answer is ‘not anymore’.

Since the skills learned in computer science, like complex problem solving and analytical reasoning skills, are important for building a foundation for numerous careers including jobs in science and technology, as well as jobs in marketing, journalism and the creative arts, most people will need an education in computer science.

I’ll let you pause so that you can picture your local marketer coding the world’s most innovative productivity enhancing widget. [If you miss the humor, perhaps you are either a world-class marketer or you do not work closely with any marketers].

Now it’s easy for me to pick on marketers. It is, after all, my current day job. I manage accounts, write copy, buy media, and conduct web application testing – including writing automated tests. Oh, and I write computer books.

But I don’t consider myself a marketer. Rather, I’m a technical communicator.

Computer Science for All

I agree with the NSF that computer science has a place beyond the traditional science and technology careers, and have held that belief for several years now; though I haven’t necessarily been able to articulate my perspectives until recently. The dip, is convincing the majority that digital fluency pays a dividend in virtually any career field you can think of.

Mitch Resnick, Scratch’s project leader, argues that digital fluency (link opens a PDF) means you not only consume technology (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, blogging), but you create things (e.g. interactive stories, games, multimedia projects). From the article, “Scratch: Programming for All” in the November 2009 issue of the Communications of the ACM:

There needs to be a shift in how people think about programming, and about computers in general. We need to expand the notion of “digital fluency” to include designing and creating, not just browsing and interacting. Only then will initiatives like Scratch have a chance to live up to their full potential.

There’s our marketing problem again. Scratch, a computer programming language, wants to change how people think about programming. Perhaps, Scratch is a vehicle to accomplish the larger ideal – computer science for everyone. However, Scratch is promoted as a computer programming language. I think that makes it easy for kids and teachers to overlook the technology because they don’t see how computer programming applies to them.

Consider spinach for a moment. If you dislike spinach, I will have a nearly impossible task of convincing you to eat a “new spinach” that doesn’t taste like the traditional spinach. I’d be better off finding a new name for my improved spinach.

The marketing problem for Scratch and computer programming is trying to sell computer science to groups of people (marketers, journalists, history teachers) who traditionally want nothing to do with computer programming. All the talk about developing logic and critical thinking skills won’t convince the people who need convincing.

So, if we don’t describe Scratch as a computer programming language, how do we describe it?

In Scratch programming, the broadcast block lets you coordinate events, so that one event triggers one or more new events. That’s a bit of an obtuse explanation. What’s an event?

Let’s make up a quick example and assume you call me on the phone.

Event: You dial my number.

Message: My phone rings .

Event: When I hear my phone ring, I pick up my phone and look at the caller ID .

Event: “Oh, I know that number,” I think. I answer the call.

Message: I say, “hello.”

And on it goes.

The following Scratch video shows you the broadcast concept using an animated, fire and ice breathing dragon.  When the author clicks the “Fire” button, the dragon breathes fire (an orange flame). Click the “Ice” button and the dragon breathes the blue flame.  Not much different conceptually than making a decision about which phone call to answer.

The code snippets in the video are not readable,  but it does a good job of demonstrating the broadcast concept. I’m personally more enthralled with the actual animation of the dragon, which is one of the primary reasons for sharing.

Recently, @Moodlegirl followed me on Twitter (@mike_b), and as I was looking through tweets,  I found this Scratch video.

In his OSCON 2008 presentation, “Spawning the Next Generation of Hackers,” Nathan Torkington proposes that each one of us should go to our local school and volunteer – unless you’re a pervert. Then, you should stay home.

In his proposal, he prompts us to seek out some teachers and find out what they need from a technology perspective. And volunteer to run a computer club and teach some programming. He champions Scratch as the programming language of choice, which happens to have a dedicated resource for Scratch educators.

A few interesting bits from the audio…

… On teaching children to program versus playing outside, Torkington says, “You can learn to program AND you can run around outside. There are 24 hours in a day.”

… He praised Scratch for it’s accessibility, syntax free environment, and immediate results. I thought it was interesting that after his own son reached the limits of Scratch, he moved on to Processing. It’s only really interesting because I was just looking at Processing last week.

… “Teachers need teaching. It’s not just the kids” says Nathan. It’s along this vein that I wrote Scratch 1.4 Beginner’s Guide. There is, after all, nothing wrong with learning.

Listen to the MP3 (some profanity). I found this talk via the Media Downloads Queue blog thanks to Google Alerts.

In a Packt Publishing interview, I share my thoughts on the writing process. Here’s a sample:

Packt: Do you have any tips for other authors, or tricks that you learnt whilst writing, that you’d like to share?

Michael: Some of your best writing occurs when you’re not actively engaged in writing. Always have a pen available to jot down ideas as they occur; you never know when you’ll solve a nagging problem or craft the phrase that clearly explains a concept. Also, the best way to meet your deadline is to start writing. Words are cheap and you can discard them as easily as you write them, so write everything you can think of. Edit later.
You can read the entire interview at Packt’s website.

Image from Chapter 3 exercise

Packt is recruiting authors, so they want current authors to share their insights on the writing process. However, there’s a question I wished they would have asked. So, indulge me while I interview myself for a moment:

Scratchguide: What motivates you to research, write, and edit a computer programming book?

Michael: The glory. I’m all about the international glory, fast cars, and easy access to events like the Ohio Linux Fest. Oh, that’s right, OLF is free for all.  So, while I wait for my invitation from a queen and the fast cars to catch up with me, my primary motivation for technical writing is that teaching others how to use a great piece of software is a great way to give back to a community.

Teaching requires learning, and I love to learn, too.  It really is that simple.

Packt has a bunch of author interviews posted, and are a must read for anyone who “has a book in ‘em.”