Sense (programming)

Sense is an educational programming environment created by The Open University (OU) in the United Kingdom.^[3][4] It uses a drag-and-drop programming environment designed to teach students the fundamentals of computer programming, using different shape and colour "blocks" selected from a palette of available commands, meaning that the student needs no prior experience of programming nor need to learn a syntax. It is based on the Scratch programming language developed by the MIT Media Lab,^[5] and uses .sb files^[6] like Scratch but the two pieces of software cannot use each other's files.^[7]

Sense
Paradigm	object-oriented, educational, event-driven
Designed by	The Open University
Developer	The Open University
First appeared	2008; 17 years ago (2008)
Stable release	Build 136
Typing discipline	Dynamic
Implementation language	Squeak
OS	Windows, OS X, Linux[1]
Filename extensions	.sb[2]
Website	sense.open.ac.uk
Major implementations
Scratch
Influenced by
Scratch

The Sense programming environment is designed to work in conjunction with the SenseBoard, a specialised piece of hardware which connects to a user's computer via a USB connection.^[8][9] The SenseBoard has different input types such as sensors for infrared, light, sound (microphone), and temperature (thermometer), and outputs such as a motor and light emitting diodes (LEDs).^[10]

Sense and the SenseBoard are primarily used as part of the OU's My Digital Life (TU100) module,^[11] but is also used to a lesser degree on other modules. Sense was trialed in London schools in late 2012.