Kreg Hanning, Lesley University
Stephen Howell, Academic Engagement Manager for Microsoft Ireland, South Dublin
Connor Hudson, High School student, Boulder Colorado
Steve Homes, Creative Computer Lab, Galway, Ireland

Scratch@MIT Conference 2014
August 8th, 2014

At this years Scratch@MIT conference I was fortunate enough to share my Leap Motion extension during a panel discussion titled, “Extending Scratch 2.0 with Strange Devices”.  The discussion centered around the use of the extension in Scratch 2.0, and some of the thought behind developing the extension.

Stephen Howell shared his Kinect2Scratch extension, which let’s you connect the Microsoft Kinect to Scratch. I first saw the Kinect2Scratch extension during the Scratch@MIT 2012 conference, and it was the inspiration behind my own extensions. We saw the power of his extension with a Space Invaders game that was controlled by Stephen jumping left and right, and throwing his hands in the air to fire.

Connor Hudson showed off his extension which connects a Sphero to Scratch. Connor demonstrated the extension by driving the Sphero around the audience, weaving it through the audience members legs. In case you didn’t notice above, Connor is still in high school. Great job Connor!

Steve Homes brought along a device that many of us recognize from our living rooms, a Wii Balance Board. Steve showed off his surfing skills by riding the balance board through a Scratch powered space simulation, avoiding asteroids and picking up power gems along the way.

The session was open to dialog with the audience, and there were some great questions. We covered topics from the programming languages behind the extensions to how they can be implemented in a classroom setting.

Thanks Scratch Team!