Graphical, Scratch-like programming languages for Arduino
Programming the Arduino using Processing, a C-like language, is tough. C is unforgiving and can be arcane, which makes it difficult to teach to beginners and kids. Fortunately, several graphical programming languages, similar to Squeak or Scratch, can help you learn the basics of the Processing language.
Even before the Raspberry Pi (Rasp Pi)was a twinkle in Eben Upton's eye, Arduino was already being used in education, albeit originally for higher education and professionals. As Arduino became more and more popular, it was unavoidable that someone, somewhere would come up with the idea of using it with younger students. To further this goal, several Squeak/Scratch-like projects popped up over the years that can help newbies and younger kids get their heads around programming for the Arduino. I'll discuss a few of them.
BlocklyDuino
BlocklyDuino [1] is based on Google's Blockly library [2] project, which allows developers to create graphical block-based front ends for any language or, in this case, device. For example, the Rasp Pi has a Blockly implementation [3].
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