Squeak

=//Let's Get Squeaking !//=

Our first meetings
At our first TIS-CC meeting, we gave half the kids a short introduction to Squeak, which is a "multi-media authoring tool". At our 2nd meeting we'll introduce the other half of the CC kids to Squeak. With Squeak you can create your own games, presentations, animations and much more. Or you can just doodle around and learn a bit about programming computers. Squeak runs on most types of computers and can be downloaded for free at [|www.squeakland.org]. This is the main web site for the version of Squeak we are using. You should browse around this site to see if you can learn more about Squeak on your own.

Print an overview of Squeak
A summary of how to get started with Squeak is located [|here] on the Squeakland web site. You might want to download and print this summary so you can have it available as you start using Squeak. //**Note:**// We have been having trouble getting Squeak to run from within a Web browser, but we hope to get that resolved soon. For now you should just use the Squeak program that is part of the standard download, rather than trying to run Squeak from within your browser.

First: //Create a car in Squeak and take it for a drive// !
The first thing we did with Squeak at TIS-CC was create a car, or some other simple object the kids wanted to create, and make it move and make a sound. [|Here] is a more extended example of what we did in TIS-CC. If you can download Squeak at home and work your way through this example you will be well on your way to becoming a Squeaker !

Second: //Create a car in Squeak that will drive itself around a racetrack// !
Here's a video that shows you how to create a car in Squeak that can drive __//itself//__ around a racetrack you create:

media type="youtube" key="y_3l08tI5wQ&rel=0" height="484" width="637"

There's lots more information about Squeak on the [|Squeakland] web site. There's also a 30 minute DVD about Squeak that we can watch at some point to learn more about the history of Squeak.

Send me an email if you have any questions or comments about Squeak.

Good Luck !! Curt Gridley