This paper reports on aspects of the Playground project in which young children (age 6 to 8) are writing and sharing their own computer videogames. We discuss how structures in the kernel language influenced the design of one of the project's playgrounds and in turn children's thinking and use of rules. One feature of the paper is the range of children's responses to the task of translating their ideas for games into formal rules; kernel features, such as object orientation and the use of events, at times support and at other times constrain those responses.
['Ronnie Goldstein', 'Ivan Kalas', 'Richard Noss', 'Dave Pratt']
Building Rules