Pocket Code: Difference between revisions

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In 2019, an embroidery extension has been added. It allows to code self-created patterns and designs which can be exported in the DST format. Imported on DST capable stitching machines, these designs can be stitched on t-shirts, pants, or even bags or shoes. With Pocket Code, the embroidery machines becomes programmable, similar to the [[Turtlestitch]] project, which realizes this concept on a PC (while with Pocket Code only  a  smartphone  is  needed).  As  a  result,  teenagers  have  something  they  can  be  proud  of, something they can wear, and they can show to others. This feature has proven to be especially engaging for female teenagers and shows them new  ways of expressing themselves creatively through coding.
In 2019, an embroidery extension has been added. It allows to code self-created patterns and designs which can be exported in the DST format. Imported on DST capable stitching machines, these designs can be stitched on t-shirts, pants, or even bags or shoes. With Pocket Code, the embroidery machines becomes programmable, similar to the [[Turtlestitch]] project, which realizes this concept on a PC (while with Pocket Code only  a  smartphone  is  needed).  As  a  result,  teenagers  have  something  they  can  be  proud  of, something they can wear, and they can show to others. This feature has proven to be especially engaging for female teenagers and shows them new  ways of expressing themselves creatively through coding.


The user can turn on the embroidery extension in the settings (via the three dots menu in the main screen). Once the extension is turned on, there is a new "Stitch" brick in the now available "Embroidery" category of bricks. As of 4/2019, this brick only exists in the background object. It puts a single stitch at the current x,y position of the background object. Once the execution is stopped, the user is offered a choice to export the created DST file.  
The user must '''turn on the embroidery extension in the settings''' (via the three dots menu in the main screen). Once the extension is turned on, there is a new "Stitch" brick in the now available "Embroidery" category of bricks. As of 4/2019, this brick only exists in the background object. It puts a single stitch at the current x,y position of the background object. Once the execution is stopped, the user is offered a choice to export the created DST file.  


The next version will have the stitch brick available in all objects. Stitches from different layers, and/or different objects will be rendered as different colors in the DST file.  
The next version will have the stitch brick available in all objects. Stitches from different layers, and/or different objects will be rendered as different colors in the DST file.  

Revision as of 11:48, 5 February 2020

Introduction

Pocket Code is a mobile visual programming microworld developed by the Catrobat project. “The free open source non-profit project Catrobat allows users to create and publish their own apps using only their smartphones. Initiated in 2010, with first public versions of our free apps since 2014 and 47 releases of the main coding app as of July 2018, Catrobat currently has more than 700,000 users from 180 countries, is available in 50+ languages,and has been developed so far by almost 1,000 volunteers from around the world. Catroba tis strongly inspired by Scratch and indeed allows to import most Scratch projects, thus giving access to more than 30 million projects on our users’ phones as of July 2018.” (Rock bottom, the world, the sky: Catrobat, an extremely large-scale and long-term visual coding project relying purely on smartphones), retrieved Jan 28, 2019.

Pocket code can be used in individual settings, regular lessons in schools, or settings like game jams.

See also:

Embroidery module

In 2019, an embroidery extension has been added. It allows to code self-created patterns and designs which can be exported in the DST format. Imported on DST capable stitching machines, these designs can be stitched on t-shirts, pants, or even bags or shoes. With Pocket Code, the embroidery machines becomes programmable, similar to the Turtlestitch project, which realizes this concept on a PC (while with Pocket Code only a smartphone is needed). As a result, teenagers have something they can be proud of, something they can wear, and they can show to others. This feature has proven to be especially engaging for female teenagers and shows them new ways of expressing themselves creatively through coding.

The user must turn on the embroidery extension in the settings (via the three dots menu in the main screen). Once the extension is turned on, there is a new "Stitch" brick in the now available "Embroidery" category of bricks. As of 4/2019, this brick only exists in the background object. It puts a single stitch at the current x,y position of the background object. Once the execution is stopped, the user is offered a choice to export the created DST file.

The next version will have the stitch brick available in all objects. Stitches from different layers, and/or different objects will be rendered as different colors in the DST file.

The Catrobat team is also working on other features such as zig-zag stitches and tatami patterns etc. They are continuously expanding the embroidery features.

Here is an introductory page, still under development: https://codenstitch.wordpress.com/ Tutorial: https://codenstitch.wordpress.com/tutorials/

And here are a few sample projects made with the extension:

Project Code’n’Stitch (September 2018 – August 2020). In September 2018 a new project funded by FEMtech (FFG) started. To make Pocket Code more interesting and attractive for our target group of young women between 12 and 15 years old, we are continuously extending the app's embroidery extension. The project is realized together with “bits4kids” and the Styrian fashion shop “Apflbutzn”. (retrieved Jan 2019 from News).

Research

The Catrobat project published a number of papers, in particular with respect to teaching programming to girls and students experimenting exclusion problems. Spieler et al. [1] argue “that the programming app Pocket Code can support students in their learning goals and in combination with the promising concept of game jams for project works at schools.”

Links

Bibliography

Cited with footnotes

  1. Spieler, B., Petri, A., Schindler, C., Slany, W., Betran, M., Boulton, H., ... & Smith, J. (2018). Pocket Code: a mobile app for game jams to facilitate classroom learning through game creation. arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.04461. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.04461

Other

Luhana, K. K., Mueller, M., Schindler, C., Slany, W., & Spieler, B. (submitted, 2018). Rock bottom, the world, the sky: Catrobat, an extremely large-scale and long-term visual coding project relying purely on smartphones. arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.06292. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1808.06292.pdf

Petri, A., Schindler, C., Slany, W., Spieler, B., & Smith, J. (2015, August). Pocket Game Jams: a Constructionist Approach at Schools. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services Adjunct (pp. 1207-1211). ACM. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2801610

Petri, A., Schindler, C., Slany, W., & Spieler, B. (2018). Game Design with Pocket Code: Providing a Constructionist Environment for Girls in the School Context. arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.04362.

Slany, W. (2014, October). Pocket code: a Scratch-like integrated development environment for your phone. In Proceedings of the companion publication of the 2014 ACM SIGPLAN conference on Systems, Programming, and Applications: Software for Humanity (pp. 35-36). ACM.

Slany, W. (2014). Tinkering with Pocket Code, a Scratch-like programming app for your smartphone. Proceedings of Constructionism.