Research Projects
Collab Camp
Ricarose Roque, Amos Blanton, Natalie Rusk and Mitchel ResnickTo foster and better understand collaboration in the Scratch Online Community, we created Collab Camp, a month-long event in which Scratch community members form teams (“collabs”) to work together on Scratch projects. Our goals include: analyzing how different organizational structures support collaboration in different ways; examining how design decisions influence the diversity of participation in collaborative activities; and studying the role of constructive feedback in creative, collaborative processes.
Color Code
Jay Silver, Eric Rosenbaum, and Mitchel ResnickWith Color Code, you can create computer programs that respond to colors of objects in the physical world. You can stack up LEGO bricks to form an obstacle in a video game, integrate a crayon-drawn picture into a virtual story, or use M&Ms to create a musical score.
Computer Clubhouse
At Computer Clubhouse after-school centers, young people (ages 10-18) from low-income communities learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies. Clubhouse members work on projects based on their own interests, with support from adult mentors. By creating their own animations, interactive stories, music videos, and robotic constructions, Clubhouse members become more capable, confident, and creative learners. The first Computer Clubhouse was established in 1993, as a collaboration between the Lifelong Kindergarten group and The Computer Museum (now part of the Boston Museum of Science). With financial support from Intel Corporation, the network has expanded to more than 20 countries, serving more than 20,000 young people. The Lifelong Kindergarten group continues to develop new technologies, introduce new educational approaches, and lead professional-development workshops for Clubhouses around the world.Mitchel Resnick, Natalie Rusk, Chris Garrity, Claudia Urrea, Amon Millner, and Robbie BergComputer Clubhouse Village
The Computer Clubhouse Village is an online community that connects people at Computer Clubhouse after-school centers around the world. Through the Village, Clubhouse members and staff (at more than 100 Clubhouses in 21 countries) can share ideas with one another, get feedback and advice on their projects, and work together on collaborative design activities.Chris Garrity, Natalie Rusk and Mitchel ResnickDrawdio
Drawdio is a pencil that draws music. You can sketch musical instruments on paper and play them with your finger. Touch your drawings to bring them to life—or collaborate through skin-to-skin contact. Drawdio works by creating electrical circuits with graphite and the human body.Jay Silver and Mitchel ResnickLearning with Data
Sayamindu Dasgupta and Mitchel ResnickMore and more computational activities revolve around collecting, accessing, and manipulating large sets of data, but introductory approaches for learning programming typically are centered around algorithmic concepts and flow of control, not around data. Computational exploration of data, especially data-sets, has been usually restricted to predefined operations in spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel. This project builds on the Scratch programming language and environment to allow children to explore data and datasets. With the extensions provided by this project, children can build Scratch programs to not only manipulate and analyze data from online sources, but also to collect data through various means such as surveys and crowd-sourcing. This toolkit will support many different types of projects like online polls, turn-based multiplayer games, crowd-sourced stories, visualizations, information widgets, and quiz-type games.
MaKey MaKey
Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver, and Mitchel ResnickMaKey MaKey lets you transform everyday objects into computer interfaces. Make a game pad out of Play-Doh, a musical instrument out of bananas, or any other invention you can imagine. It's a little USB device you plug into your computer and you use it to make your own switches that act like keys on the keyboard: Make + Key = MaKey MaKey! It’s plug and play. No need for any electronics or programming skills. Since MaKey MaKey looks to your computer like a regular mouse and keyboard, it’s automatically compatible with any piece of software you can think of. It’s great for beginners tinkering and exploring, for experts prototyping and inventing, and for everybody who wants to playfully transform their world.
MelodyMorph
Eric Rosenbaum and Mitchel ResnickMelodyMorph is an interface for constructing melodies and making improvised music. It removes a constraint of traditional musical instruments: a fixed mapping between space and pitch. What if you blew up the piano so you could put the keys anywhere you want? With MelodyMorph you can create a customized musical instrument, unique to the piece of music, the player, or the moment.
Re·play
Tiffany Tseng, Robert Hemsley, and Mitchel ResnickRe•play is a self-documenting construction kit for children both to share their designs with others and reflect on their own design process. Re•play consists of a set of angular construction pieces that can sense their connection and orientation. A virtual model is rendered in real time as a design is constructed, and an on-screen playback interface allows users to view models from multiple perspectives and watch how a design was assembled.
Scratch
Scratch is a programming language and online community (http://scratch.mit.edu) that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, games, animations, and simulations—and share your creations online. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaborative, while also learning important mathematical and computational ideas. More than 2 million projects have been shared on the Scratch website. We are currently working on a next generation of Scratch, called Scratch 2.0, to be launched in 2012.Mitchel Resnick, John Maloney, Natalie Rusk, Karen Brennan, Champika Fernanda, Ricarose Roque, Sayamindu Dasgupta, Amos Blanton, Andres Monroy-Hernandez, Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver, Michelle Chung, Gaia Carini, Tony Hwang, Claudia Urrea, Brian Silverman,Scratch Day
Scratch Day is a network of face-to-face local gatherings, on the same day in all parts of the world, where people can meet, share, and learn more about Scratch, a programming environment that enables people to create their own interactive stories, games, animations, and simulations. We believe that these types of face-to-face interactions remain essential for ensuring the accessibility and sustainability of initiatives such as Scratch. In-person interactions enable richer forms of communication among individuals, more rapid iteration of ideas, and a deeper sense of belonging and participation in a community. The first Scratch Day took place on May 16, 2009, with 120 events in 44 different countries. The second Scratch Day took place on May 22, 2010.Karen Brennan and Mitchel ResnickScratchEd
As Scratch proliferates through the world, there is a growing need to support learners. But for teachers, educators, and others who are primarily concerned with enabling Scratch learning, there is a disconnect between their needs and the resources that are presently available through the Scratch Web site. ScratchEd is an online environment for Scratch educators to share stories, exchange resources, ask questions, and find people.Karen Brennan, Michelle Chung, and Mitchel ResnickScratchJr
Mitchel Resnick, Marina Bers, Paula Bonta, Brian Silverman and Sayamindu DasguptaThe ScratchJr project aims to bring the ideas and spirit of Scratch programming activities to younger children, enabling children ages five to seven to program their own interactive stories, games, and animation. To make ScratchJr developmentally appropriate for younger children, we are revising the interface and providing new structures to help young children learn core math concepts and problem-solving strategies. We hope to make a version of ScratchJr publicly available in 2013.
Singing Fingers
Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver and Mitchel ResnickSinging Fingers allows children to fingerpaint with sound. Users paint by touching a screen with a finger, but color only emerges if a sound is made at the same time. By touching the painting again, users can play back the sound. This creates a new level of accessibility for recording, playback, and remixing of sound.
Watch Me Move!
Ting-Hsiang Tony HwangMicrosoft Kinect has popularized the use of body gestures to control games and animations, but only expert programmers can create applications for the Kinect. With our new video-motion extensions to Scratch, it is possible for everyone, even novice programmers, to create Kinect-like games and animations using only a standard webcam. Our extension uses computer-vision algorithms based on optical flow to track motion from real-time video, allowing Scratch programmers to access the amount and direction of motion across the whole scene and also under individual objects.
