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- a language for programming intelligent robots such as Cozmo
- a curriculum for learning computational thinking
- a set of accessories that expand the capabilities of the robot and software
The Calypso Language
Calypso is a rule-based programming language for learning about and having fun with intelligent robots. It was inspired by Microsoft's Kodu Game Lab, which was created to introduce children to programming. Calypso has benefited from multiple years of research on how to teach children Kodu. Some publications resulting from this work can be found here.The Calypso Curriculum
The Calypso curriculum provides a framework for reasoning about programs. If students can reason effectively about programs then they can predict the robot's behavior, diagnose problems when things go wrong, and of course write programs of their own. Most introductory curricula just focus on writing programs and don't give students the mental tools they need to really understand how their programs work (or why they don't work). Calypso scaffolds student understanding with tools such as an idiom catalog for recognizing higher-level structure in code, and laws of computation that explain the semantics of the rule interpreter. If these terms sound very technical, don't worry: the curriculum is accessible to children as young as eight. In the future there will be multiple versions of the curriculum targeting different age ranges, but right now there is only one version. Young children can go through the material with a parent to help explain the instructions. Older children and young adults can work through the material on their own.Calypso Accessories
Future releases of Calypso will include accessories such as walls that can be snapped together to create a navigable robot habitat, new objects for the robot to manipulate, and snap-on tools that allow the robot to interact with objects in interesting ways. The current release of Calypso supports walls that you build yourself.Back to the index Copyright 2017 Visionary Machines LLC.