By Dale Farris, Secretary
Golden Triangle PC Club
March 2002

Program Overview

Welcome to a new world of creativity!

In GollyGee Blocks, children and adults of all ages can delight in this super, free-form drawing program that is a joy to use. Rarely in the complex business of computer software do you ever run across a program that is as delightful and enjoyable to work with as GollyGee Blocks.

This program won the Fall 2000 Parents' Choice Gold Award, and within a short time of playing with it, you will quickly see why.

GollyGee Blocks is a 3D creativity program aimed at children age 5-12, although I bet most adults will not want to turn lose their computer once they see how much fun it is to play in GollyGee Blocks. Think back to when you had the time of your life playing with blocks, and you get some sense of the fun you can have playing with electronic blocks, along with many other objects, in this marvelous program.

Literally, you can now build with blocks on your computer in the GollyGee Blocks program. The program is designed to make it very easy to click on blocks of all types and sizes, and then place the blocks on the drawing surface. You are playing in a 3D world using traditional building block shapes, along with a library of other pre-designed objects and shapes. Very intuitive editing tools let you stack, stretch, rotate, translate, copy, color, and texture the blocks to make whatever 3D scene you wish.

The opening user interface is designed to look like anybody's playing yard, surrounded by the main menu, the zoom and camera controls, and the message bar at the bottom. You see the File, Shapes, Objects, Colors, Textures, and Move Menus at the top.

Shapes Menu

Placing a block is a easy as clicking on a block in the Shapes menu, and then clicking on the ground. The keyboard arrow keys can be used to resize and rotate the shape, and there is no limit to how many blocks or other objects you want to use. To stop placing blocks, click on one of the other menus.

Also in the shapes menu are the S, M, and L commands which control the size of the block. The ? button lets you specify the block dimensions by dragging the mouse.

When you have the ? button selected, you start a shape by clicking on the ground. This point will be either the bottom corner or the bottom center of the shape. Move the mouse and adjust the cross section of the shape parallel to the ground. Click again to solidify these two dimensions and then move the mouse to adjust the height. If blocks sometimes overlap but do not stack, turn on the "stack mode" by clicking on the stack button in the lower left hand corner of the screen. 

In stack mode, you defy the laws of gravity. This means you can stack things in all sorts of ways, and the objects will not fall down.

Camera Controls

To look at the objects in different angles, use the arrow buttons in the lower right hand corner of the screen to rotate the camera. You can rotate left and right, and up and down, by just holding the camera arrow buttons down. You can also adjust the camera rotation speed.

By holding down the Shift key and clicking on the twirl button, you will switch from rotate mode to pan mode. This makes the arrow buttons switch from rotating to panning (translating) the camera. Holding down the arrows will now appear to move the scene, which can be useful for working on parts of the scene that are not close to the center. You can also use the right mouse button to rotate or pan.

Objects

Building with blocks on the computer could not be any more fun, or easier, than working in GollyGee Blocks. The Objects menu presents many types of blocks to play with, but it also presents many other types of objects, like people and cows and trees, to play with. Click on the object and click on the 3D scene where you wish to place these objects. Just like the shapes, you can also rotate and scale these other types of objects.

Textures

Textures is where children can really get creative. Click on the Textures menu to bring up a variety of texture types. These include marbled surface, brick walls, night sky, and the outside of a Holstein cow. Click on the texture you would like to add, move the mouse to the scene, and then the mouse cursor changes to show what texture you have selected. Click on the object and you apply the texture to the object. You can also apply these textures to the background of the scene, as well as the 3D text.

The special blue and white grid texture can help with lining up things in the scene. The white lines on this grid texture, when applied to the surface, will line up with the different size geometric shapes you may have added to the scene. This can come in handy when building things, especially when doing math lessons. 

Colors

The colors menu presents a palette of many multi-colored spheres to color the scene. Click on a color button and move the cursor into the scene. Click on an object to change its color. If you have objects with applied textures, you can actually blend the colors and textures together. Click on the Blend switch to toggle blending on and off. You just choose a color and then apply it to an object that already has a texture applied to it.

Move Menu

The move menu provides tools for editing, copying and deleting objects. Click an object, move it around, and then click again to stop. These tools include Move, Lift, Tilt, Turn, Stretch, Scale, Copy, Stack, and Delete.

File Menu

You can save what you see on the screen, and then later load the scene to continue working on it. When you save an image, this saves the file as a BMP file, so be sure you remember this, as BMP files are very large files. Before you wish to further work with the saved BMP file in other applications, you might want to consider opening the saved BMP file in another image editor program, and try to save the BMP file in a smaller file size, such as maybe a JPG or GIF file format.

Snapshots

Taking a snapshot of the scene does not save the file. This just gets you the image of what you are shooting, and not the actual object. Snapshots can be loaded into other programs. Snapshots are saved in a folder called Snapshots in the GollyGee Blocks directory. You go into this directory and open the 2D snapshot in your other program, such a Word, or you can attach these to email messages.

Photo Album

The included Photo Album lets you browse all the snapshots you have taken. There are arrows in the bottom left to change pictures. You can also print the scene to a default printer. Or, if you have a color printer, just select this printer to output the color image to this color printer.

WireFrame Mode

The Wireframe mode is really neat. Wireframe lets you see the faces and vertices of the objects, and you can click this button to toggle it on or off at any time. This was originally a debugging aid for the programmers, but when testers saw it they thought it was really neat and so it was left in. 

Certain objects are more complicated in wireframe mode than others. In GollyGee Blocks, there are really no curved surfaces, as everything is instead composed of tiny triangles which are smoothly shaded. This is why domes or spheres are triangulated in wireframe mode. The program is also smart enough to present simplified profiles for curved objects, such as cones or spheres.

Super Neat Features

Build with basic 3D shapes or choose from dozens of objects
View from any angle
Tons of colors and textures.
3D text tools
Intuitive user interface presents surface to build on
Easy undo and redo tools
Graphics options
Wireframe mode can be turned on and off
Camera to be used to make a picture of the design
Rotate camera angle up and down, left and right
Twirl camera around with the mouse
Reset the camera
Toggle between the two different cameras
Zoom in and out easily
Move surface all around
Message bar describes what you are clicking on
Super neat sound effects applied to all effects
Click on the object and then on the scene
Change size of the object from small, to medium, to large, to user defined
Easily change sets of objects to use
Stack blocks on top of one another
Suspend objects in mid-air to simulate turning off of gravity
Beautiful, vibrant color options
Move, lift, tilt, turn, scale, stretch, stack, clone, delete objects
Save scenes in built-in photo album to work on later
Print current scene
Use arrow keys to turn objects or make them bigger and smaller

Targeted Customers and Typical Uses

All families with children will want to seriously consider adding this wonderful creativity tool to their personal library of quality children's software. Schools will also want to add the program, especially elementary and Pre-K programs. GollyGee Blocks will work well in the computer lab in the school, along with being integrated into other classroom activities that involve creative expression. Adults that like to have fun on their computer will also have fun with GollyGee Blocks.

Price

$24.95 single license, 1-9 copies each
$19.95 multiple licenses 10+ copies

$599 school site license - up to 100 computers
$  50 additional 25 computers
$699 network drive license

$  69 Activity Guide (includes CD ROM)
$169 Activity Guide + 5 CD Lab Pack
$249 Activity Guide + 10 CD Lab Pack

Windows System Configuration Requirements

P-166 MHz PROCESSOR
Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4, 2000
32MB RAM
20MB free hard disk space
Monitor
Mouse

Mac Requirements

Mac OS 8.6 or higher
266 MHz G3
32MB RAM
20MB free hard disk space
Monitor
Mouse

About GollyGee Software, Inc.

GollyGee Software, Inc. is a special computer software company that specializes in children's software, and GollyGee Blocks is their first product and an example of their expertise in 3D graphics and user interface design.

In addition to selling the super GollyGee Blocks program, the company also provides a very helpful activity guide that can be used by teachers or parents in conjunction with the software. The activity guide is a set of over 50 classroom activities for grades K-6 using GollyGee Blocks. The guide covers art, social studies, language, math, science, and more. Aligned to state and national standards, the guide is a great way to being creativity into the classroom.

The mathematics activities involve 3D shapes, graphing, edges and vertices, symmetry, cross sections, spatial reasoning, all aligned to the NCTM standards. In the language activities, students work with the alphabet, reading and writing, verbs, nouns, and prepositions. The social studies activities involve historic buildings, landmarks, communities, and mapping skills.

Contact Information

Jonathan Blocksom
GollyGee Software, Inc.
1474 North Point Village Center
PMB #304
Reston, Virginia 20194
703-437-8342
Toll-Free 877-558-8877
FAX 703-995-0381
blocksom@gollygee.com
www.gollygee.com

You can also order from other retailers or online vendors.