Derivative of Arduino IDE?

[Willem Hillier]

Hello all,

I'm new to this group; I hope this is a good place to ask this question. I work at a company who is rolling a custom AVR-based board for an educational product (one that is supposed to be programmable by children), and one of the things we've talked about is how to make the programming as easy as possible - e.g. develop a graphical block-based system, our own easy-to-use language, etc. Hardware consists of a few really simple sensors (micro switches, IR gates) and simple outputs (LEDs, buzzers, solenoids). 

The only stuff that will really be user-programmable, at least for less-advanced users, will be simple if-else statements and delays. Things like "if this microswitch is pressed, delay 1 second and then fire the solenoid and turn this LED on". What we believe will be the best way of accomplishing this will be to start with the base Arduino IDE, and add a custom library/abstraction layer so that sensors and outputs can be easily referred to. Then we can distribute packages of this custom setup.

Since Arduino is released under the GNU Lesser and GNU General Public License, as long as we publicly release the source for such a project, are there any other legal hurdles we would potentially be looking at?

Thanks for any help.

[Bob Godzicz]

Have a look at the Micro-bit that was developed by the BBC, Microsoft, Intel and Farnel.  They are in every school in the UK.  It will be your benchmark for educational computing.

From my Samsung Phone

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[Phillip Torrone]

here are some things to check out that may be helpful.

1) microsoft's makecode (it's open-source):
https://makecode.adafruit.com/
https://makecode.com

samd support, blocks, javascript.

https://maker.makecode.com/

2) circuitpython, open-source, no IDE needed:
https://www.adafruit.com/circuitpython

shows up as a USB drive, can edit the text right there, works with an IDE, works with mu:
https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython/installing-mu-editor

check out circuitplaytground express, supported in the arduino IDE, works with makecode, runs circuitpython:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3333

cheers,
pt and ladyada

[Willem Hillier]

Wow, thanks for those hints!

The MakeCode setup does seem like a really good place to start. For hardware I'm thinking I should be looking at a PCB "expansion" board that a Micro:bit would plug into, then breaks out the necessary connectors for our product. If we were to do that then we'd want to develop a custom package to be used with the MakeCode environment, of course. Perhaps I'm being bad at Googling, but resources on how to develop a custom package are few and not that great.

The alternative to this would be to use a custom MakeCode environment on an entirely custom hardware solution. Again, I'm having significant trouble finding good documentation on creating a custom MakeCode environment...

Again, thanks for these hints. 

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[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Sun, 4 Feb 2018 08:38:52 -0800 (PST), Willem Hillier
<willem...@gmail.com> declaimed the
following:

>Hello all,
>
>I'm new to this group; I hope this is a good place to ask this question. I
>work at a company who is rolling a custom AVR-based board for an
>educational product (one that is supposed to be programmable by children),
>and one of the things we've talked about is how to make the programming as
>easy as possible - e.g. develop a graphical block-based system, our own
>easy-to-use language, etc. Hardware consists of a few really simple sensors
>(micro switches, IR gates) and simple outputs (LEDs, buzzers, solenoids).
>

I have to wonder how difficult it would be to use mBlock (a Scratch
based environment with addition for an Arduino powered vehicle) [Hmm, looks
like they now provide a housing for the electronics on the mBot <G>
http://store.makeblock.com/product/mbot-robot-kit ]
http://www.mblock.cc/software/?noredirect=en_US
--
Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
wlf...@ix.netcom.com HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

[newc...@flounder.com]

> Hello all,
>
> I'm new to this group; I hope this is a good place to ask this question. I
> work at a company who is rolling a custom AVR-based board for an
> educational product (one that is supposed to be programmable by children),
> and one of the things we've talked about is how to make the programming as
> easy as possible - e.g. develop a graphical block-based system, our own
> easy-to-use language, etc. Hardware consists of a few really simple
> sensors
> (micro switches, IR gates) and simple outputs (LEDs, buzzers, solenoids).
>

I would say that you would be best served by not bothering to create a
block-based system. You should look at adapting one of the existing
open-source block systems such as makecode or scratch. Since these
already support AVR systems, the effort needed should be minimal.

In the worst case, for C/C++ programming, you would most likely need a
board definition and a way do download, such as a set of parameters to
avrdude, or one of the many other downloaders.b

> The only stuff that will really be user-programmable, at least for
> less-advanced users, will be simple if-else statements and delays. Things
> like "if this microswitch is pressed, delay 1 second and then fire the
> solenoid and turn this LED on". What we believe will be the best way of
> accomplishing this will be to start with the base Arduino IDE, and add a
> custom library/abstraction layer so that sensors and outputs can be easily
> referred to. Then we can distribute packages of this custom setup.
>

no loops? no function calls? I once watched an 8-year-old master
subroutines in about ten minutes of explanations and two attempts; the
third attempt succeded.

If you use the standard bootloader and provide for automatic reset (a
small capacitor on an FTDI pin, for example, but there are lots of other
ways to manage this) then there is no work in the environment other than
the boards definition. Do not try to build your own block-programming
environment. It’s a waste of time and resources. Your proposed library
environment might be a worthwhile investment of time, but you can you make
an if-then-else simpler than the C statement.

A more popular approach that is emerging is the use of micropython. If
you want to grow beyond block programming, micropython is a
not-unreasonable direction,
joe

> Since Arduino is released under the GNU Lesser and GNU General Public
> License, as long as we publicly release the source for such a project, are
> there any other legal hurdles we would potentially be looking at?
>
> Thanks for any help.
>

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[stephen smith]

I don't know if you have seen Hour of Code but they use a really nice visual programming editor.  My children were exposed to Hour of Code at school and my neighbor started working for them.  I believe he told me that visual programming editor that was used was made available by Google as a library.

-Steve

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[Damago]

for such children oriented programming the microsoft's KODU is much much much better. this is understanfable for kids any age. it's event based what-if system. 

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