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Alice 3
Contact: Byron Spice, +1 412.268.9068, bspice@cs.cmu.edu, www.alice.org
Carnegie Mellon University Releases Innovative Alice 3 Software Featuring Animation from EA's The Sims2TM
Synopsis
Carnegie Mellon University has announced the beta release of Alice 3, the latest version of an innovative software environment designed to make computer programming fun through creating animated movies or video games. This new version, which Carnegie Mellon makes available as a free download at www.alice.org, includes animated characters and scenes donated by Electronic Arts (EA) from its bestselling PC game, The Sims2TM. Alice is the brainchild of the late Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor famous for his "Last Lecture," an Internet video phenomenon and best-selling book.
Overview
Like earlier Alice versions, Alice 3 allows novices to use a simple drag-and-drop interface to create 3D computer animations. The latest version includes an interface allowing advanced students to use a keyboard to create programs written in standard Java.
"Alice has the potential to draw young people into computer science who otherwise would never consider it a possible career path," said Randal E. Bryant, dean of the School of Computer Science. "It dispels the impression that computer programming is all about arcane notations and requires years of training before it becomes possible to create interesting results. Alice 3 will not only draw students in – especially with the Sims characters – but will also help them move on to more advanced programming."
More than 15 percent of U.S. colleges and universities use Alice and an increasing number of middle and high schools use the software in teaching students. To date, 10 textbooks have been written for Alice.
Pausch initiated work on Alice 3 in 2006 before being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He saw a rough version of it before he died July 25, 2008. "To the extent that you can live on in something," he said during his final lecture at Carnegie Mellon, "I will live on in Alice."
The Alice Project has received support from Sun Microsystems, Electronic Arts, National Science Foundation, DARPA, Intel, Microsoft and SAIC, as well as Google, General Dynamics, the Heinz Foundation and the Hearst Foundation.
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