Quick introduction into Microsoft Kodu Framework

1. Introduction to Kodu
Adrian Mladenic Grobelnik

2. What is Kodu?
• Kodu is a programming environment for children
• …so that they can make their own games instead of playing somebody else’s
games
• What is the main goal when working with Kodu?
• …to learn programming computers
• What is Programming?
• …programming is something to tell the computer to do so that it understands
it in a different (programming) language

3. Where can we find
Kodu?
• Kodu was made by the Microsoft
company
• Kodu is available from the following
Web address:
• http://fuse.microsoft.com/page/kodu

4. How to make a program in Kodu?
• The following steps are needed to make a program:
1. Create a world
2. Put characters into the world
3. Tell characters how to behave (programming)
4. Make the program run

5. How to run Kodu?
• Click on the application “Kodu
Game Lab” to run Kodu
• …main menu appears

6. Making our first program
(creating a world)
• First step is to create a world - we click on “NEW WORLD”
• …we get an empty world

7. Making our first program
(put characters into the world – Kodu
character)
• First we select the “Object Tool” (the funny alien)
• Next, we click on the landscape where we want to put the character
• We are shown the menu with many characters and objects
• Finally, we select the Kodu agent which gets placed on the landscape

8. Making our first program
(put characters into the world – apple
object)
• We select the “Object Tool” again
• We click on the landscape where we want to put the object
• We select the “Apple” object which gets placed on the landscape

9. Making our first program
(tell characters how to behave - programming
menu)
• In this step we will instruct the Kodu character how to behave
• we call this programming the character
• First, we right click the Kodu character
• Menu appears with several functions
• We click the “Program” function
• The screen for editing the programs appears

10. Making our first program
(tell characters how to behave -
commands)
• In this step we program the Kodu character with two commands
• Each command has a shape: “When” “Situation” “Do” “Action”
• …this means, when the situation appears, the character does the action
• In our case, we will tell the character two commands:
1. When Kodu sees an apple, it should move towards it
2. When Kodu bumps an apple, Kodu eats the apple

11. Making the program run
• To run the program, we press first the <Esc> key to exit the
programming menu
• …next, we press the <Esc> key again to make the program run
Exiting the programming editor Pressing <Esc> to run the program Running the program