Sugar Labs

Our mission: Authentic problem solving

The world needs more tools and communities for learn-by-doing education

Learners and teachers already have plenty of tools to help them with instruction-based learning. And despite the known benefits, there are very few tools and communities that encourage project-based learning. Sugar Labs's unique mission is to cultivate a community of teachers and learners engaged in learn by doing and, collaboratively, create tools explicitly made for authentic problem solving.

What about Sugar Labs interests you?

For parents, we have various educational tools and games for young learners. These tools are made for kids to learn in a fun way.

In the Sugar Neighborhood view, learners see their friends clustered around their current Activities; from this view, they can join each other’s Activities. Sugar collaboration works "peer to peer," in a classroom or under a tree; Sugar does not require the Internet.

This is one of the many other fun activities present in Sugar. Check out all the other activities.

Sugar Labs by the numbers

Sugar Labs, founded in 2008, has had an impact on the lives of many. Here are some of the statistics we are tracking.

55+
Mentors helping youth learn in programs like Google Code-In (GCI) and Google Summer of Code
1,450+
Problem-solving tasks completed by students ages 13-17.
344+
Projects for teaching and learning created by Sugar Labs students and teachers.
11,531,321+
Activities Downloaded
3,000,000+
Kids whose lives have been enriched by using the Sugar Learning Platform
170
Languages our educational software has been translated into

What we hear

This is what we've heard about Sugar Labs from students, teachers, parents, and growing developers.

"This summer was super fun and filled with learning! I enjoyed testing over 60+ activities with kids to get first-hand feedback which had a positive impact in the way they approach problems. The fact that these activities are used by kids as a tool of learning motivates me to contribute more and more. I'm going to continue to contribute and be a part of Sugar Labs."

Sourabha G., GSoC 2021 student

"I would like to thank my mentors Walter Bender and Devin Ulibarri for their constant guidance and motivation. A big thanks to Sugar Labs community and Google Summer of Code (GSoC) for providing such a wonderful opportunity for learning and helping me to be an active member of Open Source Community."

Riya Lohia, GSoC 2018 student

"I think Music Blocks will inspire many young folks to become programmers, mathematicians, composers, and music theorists. It will also provide important experiences to other young folk who pursue other fields. You are to be congratulated on your efforts."

"Fedora-Based Sugar on a Stick Is One Sweet Desktop."

LinuxInsider

EXPERIENCE SUGAR

Our educational tools can be experienced in a number of ways. Try the one that's best for you.

Music Blocks

Create musical code with the browser-based visual programming language Music Blocks.

Turtle Blocks

Explore math and computation through beautiful, artful geometry.

Try now on any device with Sugarizer

Get a taste of Sugar with Sugarizer, which opens in your browser with no installation. Alternatively, you may install Sugarizer onto your mobile or desktop device via Google Play or F-Droid (Android), the App Store (iOS), and the Microsoft Store (Windows).

Desktop/laptop bootable drive

With Sugar on a Stick (SOAS), you can experience the full Sugar Learning Platform on any computer at any time from a bootable thumb drive.

Desktop/laptop installation

Sugar Learning Platform can be installed as a full operating system on most desktop and laptop computers.

Try Trisquel for full freedom

Get all the benefits of a bootable/installation drive on the fully free and well maintained Trisquel distro.

Try Sugar on Raspberry Pi

The full Sugar environment on a Raspberry Pi (RPi).

Convenient installation via Flatpak

Do you use a GNU/Linux? Available for any distribution, individual Sugar activities can be conveniently installed via Flatpak.

Already using Sugar? We have many activities for you!

The Sugar Learning Platform is a complete environment for teaching and learning, which includes individual activities. If you're already using the Sugar Desktop Environment, then you can install from the activities below, which has links to some of our most popular activities.

Finance

Roleplay with money

Maze

Have fun with progressive challenges

Measure

Use your computer to measure things in the physical world

TurtleBlocks3D

Are you already using TurtleBlocks? Try it in three dimensions!

Words

Compose and share your ideas

Ruler

Measure and explore math

StartChart

Explore numbers and information in charts

Recall

Test your memory with this fun game

Check out the remaining hundreds of activities!

We have hundreds of activities to explore.

Important: Please know that in order to install and try them, you need to be running the Sugar Desktop Environment. If you don't have that already, please consider your other options to explore Sugar.