Carnegie Mellon University has received a $50,000 Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration (MATC) for its role in developing Panda3D and Alice, two open-source software tools that provide significant benefits to higher education and, in particular, to the arts and humanities.

Mike Christel, senior systems scientist in the Computer Science Department, accepted the award from Vint Cert, vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google Inc., at a Washington, D.C., ceremony Dec. 8. Ten institutions, including MIT, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the University of Washington received the awards, which are presented by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Panda3D is a game engine originally developed by the Disney VR Studio to create virtual reality rides, such as Aladdin's Magic Carpet, at Disney theme parks. It eventually was used to build Disney's online game, Toontown. It was released as open source software in 2002, but was not in a form that could be easily used by most game developers. Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center worked with Disney to create documentation, add features and generally make Panda3D more suitable for use by the public.

Alice is a software environment that enables computer novices to create 3-D animations using a drag-and-drop interface and, in the process, provides an introduction to computer programming principles. The software, which Carnegie Mellon makes available as a free download, is used in about 15 percent of U.S. colleges and universities. Originally spearheaded by the late Randy Pausch, the Alice Project is now directed by Wanda Dann, associate teaching professor. Alice 3.0, a new version featuring animation characters created by Electronic Arts for its best-selling "The Sims," is now undergoing alpha testing.

Photo of Google's Vint Cerf giving award to MikeChristel of the Computer Science Department. (credit: Mellon Foundation)