ALICE Computer Coding Interface

Alice is an innovative block-based programming environment that makes it easy to create animations, build interactive narratives, or program simple games in 3D. Unlike many of the puzzle-based coding applications Alice motivates learning through creative exploration. Alice is designed to teach logical and computational thinking skills, fundamental principles of programming and to be a first exposure to object-oriented programming. The Alice Project provides supplemental tools and materials for teaching using Alice across a spectrum of ages and subject matter with proven benefits in engaging and retaining diverse and underserved groups in computer science education. 1995 Alice is born as a VR prototyping tool The start of Alice can be traced to Randy’s early work around VR. He first broke onto the VR scene when he published a paper called “VR on 5 dollars a day”. Next he took aim at the challenge that creating VR content was standing in the way of rapid iteration and research and advancements in the experiences themselves. Alice was born as a rapid prototyping application for live publishing VR experiences with the goal of being accessible to non-programmers and helping to push the content of VR forward. This version of Alice was born at the University of Virginia and allowed Randy’s Stage 3 research group to make major contributions to research into VR experiences.