LearningForward

Kent Chesnut's technology in education blog.

I’ve been thinking about some input devices for Scratch that might make the program more interesting to kids who aren’t particularly interested in programming - but are interested in video games.  Several input devices come to mind; a gun (for games like Duck Hunt), a balance board (like the wii balance board), and a direction sensor (so the program could know which way you are looking).  Now I’m not trying to recreate a Wii, just provide some interesting input devices to capture the imagination of a few more kids (especially my youngest).

Scratch can support these sensors because of its internal interface to the PicoBoard.  The board supports:

• 4 x 10-bit A/D converters (configured to read resistance)
• 1 x switch
• 1 x Sound Sensor
• 1 x Light Sensor
• 1 x Slider (another A/D input on-board)

What kinds of components would such input devices require?  Not quite sure, but I’ll take a shot at it. 

Balance board:

This was discussed on the Scratch forums (here) but I didn’t see any indication that anyone was actually trying to build one.

• 4 x Force Sensing Resistors or Load Cells
• Conditioning circuit to adapt sensor output to the Pico Board
• Wood for the balance board and base

Gun: 

I would try to make the gun operate like the old Nintendo Entertainment System Zapper (see here).  I’m not sure it would work, but it’d be worth a try.

• Gun looking device
• Sensitive light sensor mounted fairly deep in the barrel
• Trigger activated switch
• Circuitry to detect if the target had been hit (to detect the dark / light transition shortly after the trigger is pressed)

Direction input - I’m not sure how to do this, but the ultimate output would be a resistance based on the direction the user is pointing.

I’ll do some research to see if such sensors are economically feasible over the next week or 2.  If they look do-able, I may try to prototype one or more of them.

Any comments?  Would such input devices increase Scratch’s appeal?