Title :
A mobile visual programming system for Android smartphones and tablets
Author_Institution :
Inst. for Software Technol., Graz Univ. of Technol., Graz, Austria
fDate :
Sept. 30 2012-Oct. 4 2012
Abstract :
Catroid is a free and open source visual programming system that allows casual and first-time users starting from age eight to develop their own animations and games solely using their Android phones or tablets. Catroid also allows wireless control of external hardware such as Lego Mindstorms robots via Bluetooth, Bluetooth Arduino boards, as well as Parrot´s popular AR.Drone quadcopters via Wi-Fi. The project is inspired by Scratch, supported by Google, so far has 170 active developers, is composed of more than 30 sub-projects (e.g., a subproject dealing with music composition using audio input sung by users into the microphone), and is growing rapidly. The visual language itself has been renamed to “Catrobat” as non-Android specific versions are under development. Current state (6/2012) of the Catroid system is open beta.
Keywords :
mobile computing; public domain software; smart phones; visual languages; visual programming; Android phones; Android smartphones; Bluetooth Arduino boards; Catrobat; Catroid; Google; Lego Mindstorms robots; Parrot AR.Drone quadcopters; Scratch; Wi-Fi; audio input; external hardware; first-time users; microphone; mobile visual programming system; music composition; nonAndroid specific versions; open source visual programming system; tablets; visual language; wireless control; Animation; Communities; Programming profession; Smart phones; Software; Visualization; Android; animations; children; educational; end user development; games; kids; mobile; music; pedagogical; programming; smart phone; tablet; teenagers; visual programming language;
Conference_Titel :
Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), 2012 IEEE Symposium on
Conference_Location :
Innsbruck
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-0852-6
DOI :
10.1109/VLHCC.2012.6344546
