Just in time for the Holidays!

We thought we'd unwrap something of our own this holiday!  Modkit Micro will be the first official release of our visual programming environment for microcontrollers and here's a sneak peek.

If you've been following the Modkit project, this screenshot tells a lot.  Did you think we decided to show the Seeeduino just because of it's festive red color?  Maybe a little, but the Seeduino represents Modkit's move to support more third party boards.  Oh, but that's a Seeeduino Mega?  Right..  Modkit will now have support for the Mega line of Arduino  compatibles.  You might also notice the new drag-and-drop hardware components.  We completely redesigned the hardware drag-and-drop to make it easier to add more components.  Oh and if you're really paying attention, you'll notice that we haven't just added things, we've taken something away: the serial port drop-down menu.  I wonder what that's about?

That's it for now.. More later..  Enjoy your holiday.

Engaging Young Women in Electronics and Programming: Lilypad workshop w/ Modkit Japanese version

A while ago, we wrote about an unofficial Japanese version of Modkit, created by an educator named Manabu Sugiura from Tsuda College in Japan.  He recently got in touch and shared some pictures from a Lilypad/Modkit workshop designed to engage high school girls in electronic design and programming. 

The Lilypad toolkit was created by Leah Buechley who heads the High-Low Tech research group at the MIT Media Lab.  Leah was my adviser at the Media Lab before I decided to take time off to focus on Modkit full time.  A number of the High-Low Tech group's research projects are centered around diversifying access to programming and electronic design through tools like Lilypad and Modkit and we're excited that this important work is being adapted by our colleagues accross the world.

We know that many educators are running their own Modkit workshops or using Modkit in the classroom and we'd love to hear about your work.  Leave us a comment about what you're doing with Modkit and maybe we'll feature you and your students in an upcoming post.  In the meantime, there are too many photos from the workshop to post them all here, so check out the slideshow on Youtube.