AgentSheets facts for kids
AgentSheets tool
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| Paradigm | object-oriented, educational, Conversational Programming |
|---|---|
| Designed by | Alexander Repenning |
| First appeared | 1991 |
| Stable release |
4.0 / 19 May 2014
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| Platform | JVM |
| License | proprietary |
| Influenced by | |
| Lisp, Logo, Smalltalk | |
| Influenced | |
| Etoys, Scratch | |
AgentSheets was one of the first computer languages made for kids. It used a special way of programming called "block-based programming." Instead of typing complicated code, you could drag and drop colorful blocks. These blocks represented commands, like actions or conditions, making it much easier to build programs.
Many other popular programming tools, like Scratch, later used similar ideas. AgentSheets helped kids create cool projects, including games and interactive simulations. The main parts of AgentSheets were "agents." These were like interactive objects that you programmed using rules. Agents could sense things like mouse clicks or keyboard presses. They could also do actions, such as moving, making sounds, or opening web pages.
Contents
How AgentSheets Helped Kids Learn
AgentSheets was first created to help students learn about computer programming. It taught them important skills through designing their own games.
Learning Computer Science Through Games
A special school program called "Scalable Game Design" used AgentSheets. This program aimed to make computer science fun and easy to learn for all students. It started with middle schoolers. Students would build more and more complex games. As they did this, they learned about important computer science ideas. These ideas are useful for game design and other scientific computing.
Great Results in Schools
Studies showed that this game design program was very successful. Many students, including girls and those from groups often left out of tech, joined in. Some middle schools even made it a required part of their classes. This meant hundreds of students learned game design each year. Over half of the students in one study were girls. Most of them enjoyed the course and wanted to take more game design classes.
How AgentSheets Was Designed
AgentSheets was made to be easy for beginners. Students could create a simple game, like Frogger, and share it online in their very first lesson. But it was also powerful enough for complex games, similar to The Sims, which use artificial intelligence (AI). If students wanted to learn more traditional coding, they could even turn their AgentSheets games into Java code.
What Are AgentSheets?
Think of an AgentSheet like a special kind of spreadsheet. Instead of just numbers, it held "agents." These agents were interactive objects that you programmed with rules. Agents could be pictures, move around, make sounds, and react to your mouse or keyboard. Some versions could even understand speech!
This grid-like design was great for building computational science projects. You could model complex scientific events, like how a mudslide happens or how an ecosystem works. It was also useful for creating simulations, like how a forest fire spreads. Because AgentSheets could be used for both game design and science, it was a great tool for learning computational thinking.
How AgentSheets Was Used
AgentSheets was used in many ways around the world:
- Middle school students made simulations of food webs. This helped them understand how complex ecological systems are.
- Computer clubs used it to build games, from simple arcade games to complex AI-based games like The Sims.
- High school students used AgentSheets to tell stories and simulate historical events, like the César Chávez grape boycott.
- Students simulated predator-prey worlds. They then analyzed the data using spreadsheets and graphs.
- After-school science programs taught students to build simulations, from forest fires to spreading viruses.
- High school students used AgentSheets as an introduction to programming.
- College students used it to design and test educational games.
- Researchers explored AI and how agents could work together.
How AgentSheets Developed Over Time
The main goal behind AgentSheets was to find new ways for people to think about computing. The first version was made in 1989. Over the years, new ideas were added to make programming easier and more powerful:
- Agent-Based Graphical Rewrite Rules (1991): This allowed users to teach agents by showing them. For example, you could show a train how to follow a track, and the system would create the rule.
- Tactile Programming (1996): AgentSheets became the first educational programming tool where you could drag and drop pieces of code. You could drag conditions and actions to build rules. This "tactile" way of programming let you see what your code would do right away. This idea later appeared in tools like Etoys, Alice, and Scratch.
- Scalable Game Design (2008): This was a free curriculum based on AgentSheets. It taught computer science through game design to students of all ages.
- Conversational Programming (2010): AgentSheets 3 was special because it could "talk" to you about your program. It would help you understand what your code meant. It could tell you if a rule would work or why it failed, making it easier to fix mistakes.
See Also
- Web based simulation (WBS)
- Scratch (Another block-based programming language)
