Hi guys! We have exciting news! Thanks to the ESUG Innovation Technology Awards we’ve been able to buy ourselves a Microsoft Kinect. We don’t have the Xbox 360 yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with it. Who needs and Xbox if you can use Kinect with Etoys? 🙂

After seeing Stephen Howell’s great work using Kinect with Scratch, we followed his steps and made it available for Etoys as well. You can see it for yourself in the video below:

How to install it?

The installation steps are a little unfriendly for the moment, and I only tried this in Windows, sorry. The following steps were taken (and modified a little) from the Scratch forums, original here.

1) Install OpenNI.

The version that worked for me is OPENNI-Win32-1.0.0.25.exe

2) Install the Kinect sensor plugin.

Run the precompiled SensorKinect-Win32-5.0.0.exe file from the bin directory

3) Install NITE.

The version that worked for me is NITE-Win32-1.3.0.17.exe. When asked for the key enter this one: 0KOIk2JeIBYClPWVnMoRKn5cdY4=

4) Copy the XML files from

«c:\Program Files\Prime Sense\Sensor\SampleXMLs\NITE\Data»
into
«c:\Program Files\Prime Sense\NITE\Data»
(overwrite files)

5)  Copy the XML files from

«c:\Program Files\Prime Sense\Sensor\SampleXMLs\OPENNI\Data»
into
«c:\Program Files\OpenNI\Data»
(overwrite files)

After this steps you should have the kinect drivers working properly (except for the audio drivers, which are not needed anyway). The Kinect green light will blink slowly once the drivers are loaded properly. It never goes solid green.

You can test it by opening one of the samples at «C:\Program Files\Prime Sense\NITE\Samples».
If none of them work, check windows Device Manager. You should end up with something like this:

• Other devices
  • Xbox NUI Audio – with an error icon
• PrimeSensor
  • Kinect Camera
  • Kinect Motor

In Windows XP the drivers didn’t installed as easily as in Windows 7. If your Device Manager shows something different from above, try installing the driver found in here: «C:\Program Files\Prime Sense\Sensor\Driver».

6) Download and run OSCeleton from https://github.com/Sensebloom/OSCeleton

7) Open your Squeak or Etoys image and load the latest version of the following packages:

• OSC
• Kinect-Core

Look in the Object Catalog for the «Kinect Server», or execute the following line:

KinectServerMorph new openInHand.

Now you should click «Start», position yourself in a way that Kinect can see your entire body, do the calibration pose, and wait for the calibration to finish.

Have fun!