Who wants to work together to create a comprehensive guidebook for mBlock?

#1

Obviously, there’s a lack of information out there about mBlock, which really stinks, as there are some quirks that get in the way and some things aren’t really that obvious. There isn’t that much stuff out there from Makeblock officially, so how about some community members getting together to make things work a little smoother for newer users? People are having a lot of trouble and I feel it would be for the best. :smiley_cat:

Do reply if you’re at all interested! We’ll need a solid group of collaborators to get this to go smoothly.

INTERESTED USERS:
@amethyst
@mddickey
@darastrixsthyr
@TechScience
@albertep
@VOC_Electronics
@Tards57

SEMI-INTERESTED USERS
@spolit

USERS TO CONTACT THROUGHOUT DEVELOPMENT:
@tommyrhodes

Dump code samples here
Dump informational articles [here] (http://forum.makeblock.cc/t/block-information-compilation/3351)

#2

Hey Tobor, I might be interested.
Selwyn

#3

Good to know!

#4

I’m a total failure with all this tech. My wife and I bought the mBot for my step son. He’s 9 and loved putting it together and playing with the basic features. When we started trying to do the programming stuff, we got totally lost and it’s now sitting on a shelf. Which is such a shame, because it’s the only thing other than lego’s that he has really shown an interest in. I was super excited to see what creations he’d come up with.

Long story short, I won’t be of much help with writing the manual, though if you need a typical american idiot to test read I’d love to help. Just thought I’d chime in to offer some encouragement and a vote of approval that a manual would be SUPER appreciated, at least in my household.

Good luck!

#5

Awesome, I’ll let you know when this project gets started. :smile_cat:
Good luck with mBlock!

(Also, for your reference, check out http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu. This is the official Scratch 2.0 wiki and will have little articles about all the blocks (excluding the ones on the robot tab)

#6

The correct URL is http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu (not www…)

#7

Ugh, of course. I wasn’t thinking. Thanks for pointing it out.

#8

I’d be happy to help out. I’m still learning mBlock, but I am a writer, and I can pitch in from that angle.

#9

Hi All,

I’ll help out. My area of interest is programming. I’m new to mBlock, but familiar with programming concepts. I am currently a web developer, but have used C++ in the past. I have the mBot Bluetooth, mDrawBot Kit, and Inventor Electronic Kit, along with a number of other sensors, hardware, and modules.

Mike

#10

@amethyst
@mddickey

That’s fantastic! It seems like we have a pretty sturdy team from this angle, and we should be able to assemble something basic through GDocs or something soon

#11

I’m pretty novice, but I’d definitely be interested in helping out however I can!

Maybe rather than a one-off guidebook that can easily go out of date, the best answer would be a Wiki, with robust sections for “Getting Started” and “Troubleshooting,” so that it can be dynamically updated as the software environment changes?

#12

I agree with @darastrixsthyr. Software changes happen, and so will the solutions to issues that arise. Everyone needs to keep in mind that this may turn into a long term project, but the benefits to the Makeblock community would be better.

Mike

#13

I think it’s a great idea! I run educational programs for kids using mBots - www.TechScience.com.au
What could really be simple to make and easy to use is a list of sample code. That’s the main thing that I find missing. Maybe also a brief explanation about the main ‘Robot’ blocks.
I already have some code samples that I’d be happy to share and maybe together we can make a much larger library that will help everyone.

#14

I wonder if we could use something like github or bitbucket for this purpose. I think you can edit files directly on the github website. Good thing about this is that there could be versioning etc. Maybe better yet would be a copy of mediawiki or Drupal somewhere.

#15

Hmm. I just found this link. https://github.com/Makeblock-official/mBot/wiki I wonder if they would mind us editing stuff there?

#16

Well I went ahead and put some docs on the wiki - it looks open. Not so nice for images tho. Thoughts?
Selwyn

#17

@all
A wiki would be a good solution to this issue. I, however, feel that GitHub wouldn’t be a good place to put this, because the interface could be confusing to children, not to mention some parents as well. I feel hosting a MediaWiki somewhere would be ideal, as unlikely as it would be (perhaps makeblock could help out) or we could create a wikia page as it seems to be one of the most popular platforms.
Anywho, I’ll add the interested users to the post.

#18

Yeah, agreed. A tool like GitHub might be, technically, the “best” place to develop something like this, but if the goal is to be accessible for the many folks with stories like @tommyrhodes, it’s important that the tools and platforms don’t constitute yet another barrier for folks already overwhelmed with new material to learn

Another option might be to request access to the official MakeBlock wiki. I’ve used that with some limited success to figure out issues with electronic modules, but there’s clearly a lot of room for improvement. I don’t love that the company has to approve editors, though

#19

I feel the approving editors function could be useful if the people approving the editors are active :wink:
The wiki also doesn’t seem built for collaborative stuff, but I’m sure we could make it work. Perhaps we should contact @Pioneer.

#20

I think we should just get started. Even here - all we need is a thread of screen shots of code samples. Ideally with an attached Scratch file. Good on you for the initiative!
Once we have a large enough list we can add those to the MakeBlock wiki or if needed, I’m sure we’ll find another place for it.

Should we maybe open another thread for it to keep it clean?

Cheers