For the last couple months, any spare time I’ve had has gone into three things. One is the AS3 version of ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move! The second is the GeoGames earth simulator thing I showed a while back, and the third is CyberChase Inventor’s Workshop. The last one has pretty much been my life for the last three weeks.
It’s basically a physics simulation where you drag and drop mechanical pieces – wheels, platforms, springs, balls, timers, engines, etc. to make a machine. The machine is then placed in a course and needs to perform a specific task – catch a ball and bring it to point A, for example. This is for the companion site to the PBS kids show, Cyberchase, so it’s in a cartoon style, with a really simple interface.
It all started when David Hirmes of Thirteen contacted me about doing some work for PBS. I knew Dave as one of the original authors of Flash Math Creativity, back in the day. I said I was really too busy to take on another project, but when he described it, I was hooked.
Cut to the end, this afternoon it was released. You can check it out here:
http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/inventions/
You’ll have to create an account to play, but it only requires a user name and password.
I did 95% of the coding, none of the graphics. The cool thing is that the courses were not even made by me. They simply use the API I created. So new courses can be added as time goes on. There are also a few more features we’ll probably fix up and add on in the near future. Just didn’t have time to get everything we wanted into the release. And we’ll probably improve some UI features as we get feedback. But overall, I think it’s pretty cool.
Nice job on the inventors’ studio Keith! My kids love watching the show, and the oldest will probably love playing with the studio as much as I will. =D
Pretty sweet. Great job with the physics engine. Fun concept. Btw, Catch a Ball II can be solved without using the timer gadget at all if you attach the two rods to the tail of the car in unison. Cool project. And I can’t wait for AS3 “Making Things Move!” !! The AS3 Cookbook has been VERY handy (although there are a lot of spelling errors :o).
Cool! The funny thing is.. last night I went to pick up my 8yr old daughter from the in-laws and she was hooked on this. I let her play a few minutes and I watched.. because it looked like such fun.
I want more levels 😀
Awesome. Just registered and did a few courses. Really nice work.
My kid loves this. I don’t know anything about Flash, but I’d love a utility to be able to create my own obstacles for my child. You could rewrite a similar system and sell it (a couple more bells and whistles might be nice). Addicting.