alice-teacher Exciting Alice Updates and More!

[Eric Brown]

Dear All,

Alice Player Update

We have recently pushed up a new version of the Alice Player!  This version is greatly improved and ready for you all to check out.  We highly recommend you take your favorite worlds and run them in the player (now in maximized full screen with shadows!).  Checking out worlds in full screen and in VR could be a great end of semester activity and treat!

http://www.alice.org/get-alice/alice-3-beta-vr/

We have enjoyed running one of our recent Alice Challenge winners Bear Quest (http://www.alice.org/featured-projects/alice-regional-challenge-middle-school-finalists/).  Hint 1:  Try to cross the bridge early to trigger a condition Hint 2: The quiz answers have to be exact (I may have to ask her to change this to be includes not equals - I gave up and cheated by looking at the code)

VR now has the interface built in so you can navigate worlds inside the headset.  We have also implemented all controller inputs for Oculus Rift and most for the HTC Vive.  Up next we are working on the ability to author hand objects in Alice so you can use them for vehicling objects and in collision detection events to the controllers.

PS.  We are working hard to iron out all of the bugs but please review the page for known issues.   We are hoping you can start helping us test since the more cases we have of an issue often helps us figure out what is going on.  We are still working on the functionality of the Sims People so unfortunately they are still immovable mannequins.  If you are starting new projects that want to use the player or VR avoiding their inclusion for now helps (we are close we hope).   

PAsmart Grant Call for Partners

We are also in the process of exploring opportunities to partner with PA schools, districts and LEAs on a PAsmart Grant.  If you are in Pennsylvania and interested in discussing please reach out to me directly to discuss (Eric Brown ewbrown at andrew.cmu.edu)

We wish you all a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to rolling out even more exciting things soon.

Sincerely,

The Alice Team