John (Yuehan) Chen

John (Yuehan) Chen

he/him/his

Designing the Future of Learning

Turtle Universe (2019-Present)

Since 2019, I have been the founder and project lead of Turtle Universe (TU). My responsibilities include:

  • Led a technical and research team with 16 undergraduate and graduate students to design and research the mobile-first incarnation of NetLogo.
  • Conducted design-based mixed methods research to understand the design of interactive scaffolds for informal, online learners (AERA 2022, IDC 2023, Constructionism 2023, ISLS 2023).

Originally called NetLogo Mobile, Turtle Universe is a full-fledged agent-based modeling and programming app for children, educators, and enthusiasts. It is the foundation of Tortuga (an editor for interactive tutorials), NetLogo AR, and NetLogo Chat. In May 2024, it has been used by 104,539 people around the world. Please try it out here.

A screenshot of Turtle Universe running the classical Wolf Sheep Predation model.

Turtle Universe has been my main research site during the Ph. D. studies. While I was designing and developing it, I gave two presentations in ISLS introducing the software: ISLS 2020, 2021. Throughout the years, TU has branched out into several sub-projects, each with its own publication record. Please refer to the next section for more information.

Work in progress.