Telling on Bow; Calibrating the Touchscreen

Yesterday, while Lawrence was watching him, Bow dripped on the way to the potty. When I came in to talk to Lawrence, Bow put his hand over Lawrence's mouth, as if to say: "Don't tell." Later, there was another dripping incident, and Bow asked Lawrence not to tell me, by spelling it out on the glass. When all that failed, Bow spelled out at lunch: "Lawrence is bad."

"Why is he bad?"

Bow spelled: "Because he told you."

Yesterday afternoon was the first time Bow tried out the other touchscreen, the one that was donated to us, after having been used in a bar to advertise liquor. It was supposed to be very tough, as it was meant to stand up to the assaults of inebriated customers, but in fact the screen is a bit scratched up. I would not trust Bow with it in direct contact, but it works well with a chopstick. The screen is bigger than on our other Project Bow computer, and Tracey helped me select a lower reslution display, which makes the keys for the letters appear much bigger. This makes using this touchscreen easier. There's just one problem: it's not calibrated correctly.

Lawrence told me that at first Bow was very interested in the new computer and used it a lot, but he only selected random letters, and after a while he lost interest.

This morning, after breakfast, Bow gesticulated toward the big, hulking computer. (It's on a stand, and Bow has to use it standing up.) "What do you want, Bow?" I asked.

He took me to the glass and spelled out: "To play with the computer."

I gave him the chopstick, and he started pointing with it. Every time he hit the screen, it made a kind of beeping sound. (The other one doesn't do this.) Then I noticed that the touch was not registering in the right place. Bow was pointing at letters, but the computer was registering the touch between the letters.

"Bow, it's not calibrated correctly," I said, taking the chopstick from him and demonstrating. "You have to hit it to the right of the letter, like this, see?"

But Bow lost interest again. I think we will need to recalibrate.