design for UI

[Unni]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Unni <kpn...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: I would like to join Project Carcode
To: Toby Donaldson <t...@sfu.ca>


Hi there,
  Okay, so let me see.I don't think any university student learning programming will be satisfied with running pictures of cars around on their computer screens.

Right, so to make it a little more exciting and also to give it much more of an authentic appeal we could give them a choice of at least four varieties of cars.
Of course the way the cars are designed and drawn might have to be slightly altered. I was thinking of using images of cars.

Also  I think documentation and a help index is a must. There must be some scope for exploration and experimentation. I have a rough sketch of the interface and I have attatched with this mail. Let me know what you think.

About some solid examples of what I plan to do with the project:
I think providing a provision for writing some actual code might do some good.
if the car could also be controlled by some python code, it might serve our purpose
much better.

Cheers,
Unni

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 10:11 PM, Toby Donaldson <t...@sfu.ca> wrote:

Hello Unni,

This sounds interesting. At the moment, I am planning to use carcode
with 1st-year university students. What would the user interface do?
Do you have a sketch of it, or a list of features that it would have?

Perhaps down the road it could become a "full-fledged learning
environment", although I am not sure what that would mean, exactly.
Can you list a few concrete examples of what exactly you would like to
do with carcode?

At the moment, carcode needs help with the sorts of things listed
here: http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/CarcodeVision

Toby

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 9:21 AM, Unni <kpn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi again,
>    Sorry i took so long. I had quite a time getting 'carcode' to run :). I
> think i'd like to start by designing a UI, which communicates
> with the children (who will mainly be using it) in such a way that they will
> have no problems in adapting to the environment, unlike me.
>  By the way speaking of environment, what do you think of this project
> growing into full-fledged learning environment for children which can
> go on to include, maybe, a toy car or a mini robot which could be controlled
> by writing code in our environment. I have a few ideas for this
>  application, and would like to submit that as a proposal for the Google
> Summer of Code. Can you please let me know what your thoughts are.
>
> Cheers,
> Unni
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 8:04 PM, Toby Donaldson <t...@sfu.ca> wrote:
>
> > Hello Unni,
> >
> > Glad to hear you are interested. What would you like to do on the project?
> >
> > Toby
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 11:39 PM, Unni <kpn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >     My name is Unni. I am a student of Computer Science and Engineering
> at
> > > Govt. Engineering College, Trichur, Kerala, India.
> > > I have been closely associated with the free software community all over
> > > India for the past three years.
> > >  Was thinking of developing a project along the same lines as Carcode to
> > > help the students over here in Kerala, who happen to have Linux Kernels
> > > loaded
> > > on to their systems at school as a part of the Government's initiative
> to
> > > spread Free Software awareness. This is a facility not provided in any
> other
> > > state in India.
> > >  That means by showing off the progress made by the students here, we
> can
> > > spread the movement all over India. My Guru, Pramode.C.E , has initiated
> > > work on a Tkinter version of
> > > the Neko project. I would like to join your project and try to put it to
> > > some use once it is fully functional.
> > >  --
> > >
> > > cheers,
> > > Unni
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dr. Toby Donaldson
> > School of Computing Science
> > Simon Fraser University (Surrey)
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "Love Does Not Exist"

--

Dr. Toby Donaldson
School of Computing Science
Simon Fraser University (Surrey)

--
Cheers,
Unni

--
Cheers,
Unni

[Toby Donaldson]

Hi again Unni,

The interface looks great ... in addition to what you have, I would
also like it to have a source code editing window, or to somehow have
a button attached to Idle that would automatically run carcode.

I agree there needs to be more end-user documentation. But I would
like to finish the essentials details of the code before writing that.

Indeed, the most interesting part of carcode to me is to create
autonomous Python-controlled cars that steer sensing their environment
(e.g. using pixel color sensors).

For the application, I suggest you give a timeline of activities, and
some details on how you will go about doing the implementation, e.g.
what software package(s) you'll use to implement the interface.

Toby