Maple 32 bits board is here!

We are having a lot of activity in the project these days. Since the v0.8.Alpha was sent to backers and alpha testers we got a lot of feedback, and we are now working hard to release the Beta. One of the Beta's biggest improvements will be the ability to work with a lot of boards. Most of them will be Arduino-compatible boards, with 8-bit AVR microcontrollers. But this week we added a very different board to the list of supported hardware: The Maple (32-bits!) from LeafLabs. It features an ARM Cortex M3 processor running at 72 MHz. Although the multiboard subsystem is still a work in progress, this shows clearly Minibloq's capacity to deal with different hardware and backend compilers.

Minibloq at the Universidad de Buenos Aires

Minibloq is being tested on a postgraduate course on physical computing and robotics at the Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Using equipment provided by RobotGroup, this course belongs to the BIME, a postgraduate career on design and mechatronics:

Hardware for primary schools and Minibloq

Multiplo equipment produced by RobotGroup, is being used by the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional - Facultad Reginal Buenos Aires, for a project called KimTech. Minibloq is the software selected for the project. Here is a small (initial) video showing one of the possible models that can be constructed to teach automation in primary schools (you can see more videos here):

Small video about Minibloq.v0.8.Alpha's variables

As promised in a previous post, here we have another small video with features belonging to the last Minibloq version (v0.8.Alpha). This time it shows quickly the real time error-checking in the variables subsystem:

First approach to run Minibloq under OS X

Ulises Mendoza, from Spain, has been working on a Wineskin wrapper for Minibloq. Thanks Ulises! Here is a screenshoot:

This wrapper was sent to backers and alpha testers today. I hope to have it working fine for the Beta release...

I'm also working on the project's Documentation page these days, so you will find there instructions to run Minibloq in Ubuntu and in the OLPC XO, among other things.

Minibloq v0.8.Alpha sent to backers and alpha testers!

Today, the last Minibloq's Alpha version was sent to backers and alpha testers. This means that the next version (v0.8.Beta) will be available for download. I think this will be soon. Here is a small video showing some of the new features:

I will upload examples (with videos) and improve the online documentation these days. So once the Beta becomes ready, it will be easy to get started!

Nice post about Minibloq on Maker Masters

Bill Griggs has made a nice post about Minibloq in his Maker Masters blog:

Thanks Bill!