A 3-dimensional editor for app inventor

Abstract

3-Dimensional Applications are constantly becoming ever more abundant to audiences of all ages. However, development for such applications have allows been known to be unpleasant. To make 3-Dimensional Application development more appealing and available to people of all ages, this thesis looks to create a working prototype of a 3-dimensional editor for MIT App Inventor. MIT App Inventor is a powerful programming environment that is accessible to everyone. It is easy to learn and use, which makes it used fairly often to teach many different people about building applications. With the App Inventor's easy to use block programming, a 3-dimensional editor will make such applications easier to build and learn for everyone. For this thesis, I have worked on building a prototype 3-dimensional editor that will be usable and easy to learn. Many changes and improvements have been made so that even a person with no prior knowledge would be able to come and start working in the environment. These changes include, but are not limited to, the ability to create conglomerate objects, creating a better user interface, and keeping the process as simple and easy as possible so as not to create the complexity most platforms today give. The editor was tested over a 3 day workshop with 7 students, of the ages 12 to 16, to guarantee the simplicity of developing 3D applications. The results of the workshop showed that students were able to get a better understanding of 3-Dimensional development by using the editor. However, the workshop also shed light that the editor is still too complex and has room for improvement.