This new 'hood, Ayelia, is something else!
All the peeps are dancing, collecting beads, earning peepsPoints, making friends, and sharing their latest moves.

You've got to be careful of the Gobblers, though, they’ll take what you know and sell it in the underground!

Can you defeat the gobblers? Get your stuff back? Get your friend’s stuff back? Make the trees dance? Decorate your crib to be the hottest spot in town? And be Ayelia's best dancer?

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The description above is a synopsis of the "Peeps" game, a research outcome from a three-year research project to build a successful software environment for realtime, applied programming for underrepresented students' early literacy (RAPUNSEL). The goal of our project is to ultimately address the critical shortage of women in technology related careers and degree programs by empowering them to create with comptuer programming.

Fewer girls than boys enroll in computer science-related programs, feel self-confident with computers, and use computers outside the classroom. Much research ties this shortage to problems at the middle school age, and both women and girls report a lack of confidence in their computer skills.

Our team believes that the the ability to create with a computer will help equalize current disparities of gender and ethnicity in the fields which develop and use these technologies the most. Children who can learn how to program computers will have more opportunities for authorship and creativity afforded them, as well as more options in schooling and career paths.

The goal is to develop an engaging system with which to teach computer programming to middle school girls!