A guide to AI extensions to Snap!

The eCraft2Learn project developed a set of extensions to the Snap! programming language to enable children (and non-expert programmers) to build AI programs. The blocks are available as projects with examples of using the blocks as well as libraries to download and then import into Snap! or Snap4Arduino. It is possible to download the files needed to run most of the blocks and projects described here without an Internet connection.

AI programming guides

A guide currently consisting of six chapters describes the new blocks, possible projects, sample programs, background information, and the larger context about AI and machine learning:

Publications

Constructionism and AI: A history and possible futures by Ken Kahn and Niall Winters describes our view of the history and future of the role of AI in constructionist learning. Deep Learning Programming by All by Ken Kahn, Yu Lu, Jingjing Zhang, Niall Winters, and Gao Ming describes our efforts in enabling students to build, train, and use deep learning models (as described in Making machine learning neural nets). Both papers were published in the Proceedings of the 2020 Constructionism Conference.

Presentations

This work has been presented at several conferences and universities. The slides can be found here. There are also slides from a talk about word embeddings and mathematics education.

Sample programs

The following demonstration programs use the AI Snap! blocks. They run best in the Chrome browser.

**Listen to generated speech with random pitch, rate, voice, and language**
(requires speaker/headphones)

**Speak single word commands to a sprite (with synonym support)**
(requires microphone and speaker/headphones)

**Speak full sentence commands to a sprite (with keyword search)**
(requires microphone and speaker/headphones)

**Create funny sentences by verbally answering questions**
(requires microphone and speaker/headphones)

**Customise stories by verbally answering questions**
(requires microphone and speaker/headphones)

**Ask questions of Wikipedia**
(requires microphone and speaker/headphones)

**Ask about the weather anywhere in the world**
(requires microphone and speaker/headphones)

**Listen to a description of what is in front of the camera**
(speaker/headphones, webcam, and API key(s))

**Listen to a description of what is in front of the camera in response to you speaking**
(requires microphone, speaker/headphones, webcam, and API key(s))

**Train the turtle to move depending on which way your finger is pointed**
(requires webcam and a GPU)

**Train the turtle to move depending on the voice commands you give**
(requires microphone)

**Train the turtle to move left or right depending on which way you lean**
(requires webcam and a GPU)

**Play *Rock Paper Scissors* using machine learning**
(requires webcam, speaker/headphones and a GPU)

**Play *Simon Says* using machine learning**
(requires webcam, speaker/headphones and a GPU)

**Run an app that warns you if you touch your face**
(requires webcam and a GPU)

**Play a game where you pop virtual balloons with your hands**
(requires webcam and a GPU)

**See what objects are in front of the camera**
(requires webcam and a GPU)

**Play *Guess My Word* that works by turning words into 300 numbers**
(requires speaker/headphones and optional microphone)

**Turn a photo into 8 different paintings**
(requires webcam (but easily modified to use any image instead) and a GPU)

**Answers questions about this Snap! AI library using the** **Universal Sentence Encoder**
(might be slow without a GPU)

**Answers questions about Snap! using the Snap! Wikipedia article using** **BERT**
(might be slow without a GPU)

**Suggest spymaster clues for the** **Codenames game.**
(might be slow without a GPU)

**Translation using 300 numbers and a word list with 2.5% coverage**
(no special requirements)

**Guesses the relationship between two lists of numbers**
(runs very slowly without a GPU)

**Learns to predict your ratings of "Abstract Art"**
(runs very slowly without a GPU)

**Learns to play Tic Tac Toe**
(runs very slowly without a GPU)

**Names colors badly - Improve it!**
(runs very slowly without a GPU)

**Guesses the level of confidence indicated by a sentence**
(runs very slowly without a GPU)

**Tries to solve analogy problems with photos (partially successfully - can you improve it?)**
(runs very slowly without a GPU)

Source code

Contact

Send email to Ken Kahn (toontalk@gmail.com) if you encounter problems or have questions.

GPU required for chapter 4 image recognition, chapter 6 machine learning, and some demos

Nearly all modern computers have a GPU. Without one or with a very primitive one programs using machine learning may run very slowly. For example, the image machine learning commands run very slowly on Raspberry Pis. One version of the audio training primitives, however, do run well on Raspberry Pis.

Using the AI blocks in your projects

You can import this file into your existing or new projects. The AI blocks can then be found in the Snap! palette under

, or

Adding speaking to your programs	Speech synthesis requires only speakers or earphones
Adding listening to your programs	Speech recognition requires a microphone (built-in or connected to a USB port)
Adding image recognition to your programs	Requires a camera (built-in or connected to a USB port) and registering to get API keys
Adding pre-trained machine learning models to your programs	Many examples rely upon a camera. It is very slow unless your device has a GPU.
Working with words and language	No special hardware requirements
Making machine learning neural nets	It is very slow unless your device has a GPU.

Enabling children and beginning programmers to build AI programs

Introduction