OctoStudio!

24Oct, MIT Media Labs, the same group who brings us Scratch, released a new mobile version of Scratch called OctoStudio. I've tried it out in preparation for my 9Dec demos at the Tech-Girls Girls Geek Day event.

Here's a quick summary from MIT Media Labs about it:

Designed especially for children and families in communities with limited or no access to computers and internet connectivity…Children can create OctoStudio projects offline, without any data charges..

(KIds can) also integrate their creations into the physical world. For example, a child can place a phone in their pocket and program it to play sounds when they jump or dance ..

You will need an internet connection to download the app. The download is under 30MB in size. 

Once installed, the app is offline, no internet or network data is needed! So does not use data in order to create.

OctoStudio is not supported yet on computers, web browsers, or Chromebooks. 

Here are my early creating impressions using my Samsung A32 v13 phone ;)

Pros:

It is cool to integrate the native phone functionality, like "buzz" and "tilt" and "beam" into the familiar Scratch commands. However, "shake" does not work using my phone?

The graphics feature is really amazing, in that you can create sprites by snapping a picture and then tracing the outline directly with your finger on the image in a way that "snaps" to the edges of the object you want to make a sprite from, then auto cuts to create a custom sprite!

If you click on "Explore", there are 7 base projects with nice coding examples kids can open and remix to create their own versions to follow along with your demo. For instance, I plan to use "Virtual Pet" to create a "scored" game with 2 sprites interacting with each other.

Cons:

The Blocks are really crowded using the phone and you can't really tell what they do until you select them and they appear in the code editor.

The Blocks do not contain all of the functionality from Scratch 3.0, such as random glide, a command I like when creating games

It appears the settings on your phone/tablet might interfere with some OctoStudio functionality that aren't intuitive to enable? For example, none of the sounds from the OctoStudio library play currently on my phone.

The OctoStudio user forum was down this weekend?

I would say if you are planning to use Octostudio now, be prepared for glitches and I will plan to use it as a companion to my Scratch 3.0 lesson plan and hopefully the user forum will be up and running soon so I can post some tips and tricks!