Spark & Anvil Privacy

Ages 9–14 · Grades 4–8 · Computer Science

EventForge

The app sits still and waits, its score at 0. Three events are coming: a clap, a tap, a clap. Tap to fire the first.

A real app sits still and reacts: read the handlers and the event timeline, then predict the log before you run it.

The events here are scripted (a stand-in for a real tap or shake), so every program runs the same way on any device. Runs on your device — nothing leaves it.

Where this idea comes from

Waiting for something to happen

In 2006 the Wii remote put a motion sensor in a games controller: swing it, and the game hears a “swing” event. In 2009 the iPhone learned shake to undo — shake the phone and the app hears a shake and offers to take back your typing. In 2014 the Amazon Echo waited, all day, for one wake word before it did anything at all.

One thing to hold: A phone in your hand: a glass to tap, and a sensor that feels it move.

Why it matters: Each one is a program that mostly does nothing. It sits and waits, and when an event arrives — a tap, a swing, a shake, a word — the matching handler runs. That is why a polite program waits: it doesn’t act until something happens, and it only acts on what it was told to listen for.

What we don’t know: A device that waits for a wake word has to hear everything to notice the one word. People argue about how much such a device should keep, and who should know it is listening. EventForge never uses the microphone or the camera, and nothing you do is sent anywhere.

Dates:

  1. 2006 The Wii remote: a swing is an event.
  2. 2009 Shake to undo on the iPhone.
  3. 2014 The Echo waits for its wake word.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Wii Remote” · TechCrunch, “Gallery and Initial Impressions: iPhone OS 3.0” (17 March 2009) · Wikipedia, “Amazon Echo”

Meet the cast — the characters who teach this

  • Tocker fires off again and again and rushes the order — you teach the timeline
  • Tippy matches each event to its own handler
  • Sill lets events through one at a time, in the order they happen
  • Hasp keeps one running total for every handler

What next? Pick a door

Chosen from what this app is about. What you open is remembered on this device only.