'''Screenshots:'''

• Startup screen
• Programming 1
• Programming 2
• Programming 3
• Programming 4
• Programming Sub-menus
  • Program: Square - NO loop
  • Program: Square - Using loop
  • Program: Browser

'''Introduction to interface:'''

This interface is used to program a LEGO Mindstorms robot. Building blocks (Programming components) are always available at the left side of the screen. Images are iconic (which is less intimidating). Multiple pages of programs can overlap each other (notice the “Untitled-5” tab in the “Programming 3” screenshot). A window, to change preferences for an action, is always available at the bottom of the screen.

'''Application to personal research:'''

A page could consist of time-lines connected together by decision branches (i.e. it would be a “tree” [in the computer science sense of the term] of time-lines). A branch could lead to another time-line on the same page, or to an icon that would tell the user what page contains the time-line that the branch leads to (clicking on that icon would take the user to that page and time-line).

If we made a list of programming components, it could consist of:

• Animate (to play any animation/sound)
• Wait (to wait for remote control, sensory input, or time)

After a Wait, control could change over to somewhere new in the script.

Perhaps Animates and Waits could exist on two separate lines of a time-line.

'''Questions:'''

• Would it be better to have a “loop” programming component, or have looping a variable of an animation block?
• Would it be better to show more information about a programming component ON the block instead of in the window at the bottom of the screen?

'''Additional notes:'''

• LEGO Mindstorms robots can also be programmed using Microsoft's Robotics Developer Studio

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