To celebrate this year's 30th anniversary of Terrapin Logo, Terrapin is collecting stories about encounters and experiences using Logo . Logo is one of the oldest and most widely used educational software programs as well as one of the most adaptable. Innumerable students, teachers, and others improved their understanding of computers, programming, geometry, and problem-solving with Logo in many different places and different ways. Tell us about it!

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Bee-Bots are motivating students at Sahuarita Primary School near Tucson, AZ to learn about area birds. Computer teacher Dorothy Fitch , a Logo fan and birder, found that Bee-Bots let her combine both interests for her students. She downloaded and printed two sets of 36 images of local birds from the web, locating one set on the Bee-Bot Card Mat and laminating a second. Students learned to identify black-chinned hummingbirds, cactus wrens and other local species by sending Bee-Bot to the bird on the mat that matched the one on the card.

All 700 students at Sahuarita Primary School rotate through the computer lab weekly in 32 classes of 20-28 students, making for an animated and fun learning environment. On "Bee-Bot Days" half of each class works on four Bee-Bot activity mats located between the rows of computers in the lab while the other half pursues computer activities including Focus on Bee-Bot , Terrapin Logo , and Crystal Rain Forest . Halfway through the two groups switch.

When the assistant superintendent visited the class, he was impressed with the way Bee-Bots helped students develop spatial awareness, sequencing, and problem-solving skills, not to mention avian awareness. Students themselves are always excited when they come to the lab and find Bee-Bots waiting for them to use.

Logo's turtle and the images it can create through FORWARD, BACK, LEFT, and RIGHT commands is well known. Less well-known is that Logo can manipulate many other images too. Terrapin Logo version 3 introduced a full set of commands for controlling most popular image formats, offering great animation capability.

Logo fan Stan Munson, author of the Terrapin Logo Tutorial , has created the Logo spinner, illustrated on the left and posted in the Project Ideas section of the Terrapin web site. The spinner illustrates how to animate graphic images as well as make random selections from the 10 numbers on the wheel. Use it to play the lottery, or better yet, download the program to learn about animation and modify the spinner to make it work the way you want.