Kedama: A GUI-Based Interactive Massively Parallel Particle Programming System

Decentralized and complex systems can be powerful tools for modeling concepts in mathematics, science and engineering. StarLogo and NetLogo were the first systems to allow middle and high school children to build dynamic models from many thousands of programmable particles. This has inspired Kedama: an authoring system that simplifies the scripting and construction of massively parallel models to allow more students to join in this new rich environment. This has given rise to new user interface and programming language designs. Kedama has the following notable features: 1) Scripts in Kedama can be written in a graphical tile scripting interface. Its users are alleviated from syntax errors, and all program elements are visually presented to the user. 2) Kedama is an extension of Squeak eToys: children who have learned to "script in the large" can use same techniques to "script in the small" with many thousands of objects. 3) The semantics and syntax are simplified but retain full power of expression. 4) The UI in Kedama is dynamic: scripts and other properties in Kedama can be dynamically modified while scripts are kept running. 5) Kedama is more portable, being able to run on more than two dozen types of platforms, including the most used around the world. 6) Kedama is fast. Various simulations typically run about 3 times faster than previous systems. This improvement made it possible to write different classes of examples.