short programming projects for kids

[Steve Holden]

Adrian Casey wrote:

> André Roberge wrote:
> 
> 
>>bobdc wrote:
>>
>>>I will be teaching an "Introduction to Programming" class to some
>>>middle school aged children and will be using Python, obviously. Does
>>>anyone have suggestions for simple little programs to create and
>>>analyze with them after I get past turtle graphics?
>>>
>>>Turtle graphics will be plenty for the first session, and I will leave
>>>time to ask them what they'd like to do in later sessions, but I was
>>>curious if anyone on the list has experience picking pedagogical
>>>programming examples appropriate for twelve-year-olds' attention spans.
>>>thanks,
>>>
>>>Bob
>>>
>>
>>While it is not python per se, I suggest you have a look at GvR
>>(Guido van Robot) (The app is written in Python but is too complicated
>>for beginners).  It is hosted on sourceforge (gvr.sourceforge.net).
>>It is a very interesting way (imho) to learn about programming, in
>>a pythonic way.
>>
>>(somewhat shameless plug follows:)
>>A 'more advanced version' of GvR which uses the full Python syntax
>>is RUR-PLE  (rur-ple.sourceforge.net).  The version currently hosted
>>there does NOT work under Linux (untested on Mac).
>>It uses wxPython 2.4 and will not work with 2.5.
>>An updated release that will work under both Linux and Windows,
>>and under both wxPython 2.4 and 2.5 will come out very soon, I hope.
>>
>>I'm working on it :-)  I have two kids (ages 11 and 13) and plan to use
>>rur-ple to teach them about programming.   Note that, even though
>>I plan it to be suitable for motivated children (with some guidance),
>>the end product (to be finished in a year?) is planned to be suitable
>>for a complete first-year university computer science.
>>
>>Andre Roberge
> 
> 
> I started teaching my 11 year old first of all by doing silly stuff like -:
> for i in range(10):
>         print "Silly me!"
> 
> Moving on to more useful stuff like times tables (which they have to learn
> anyway).
> 
> After times tables, I plan to work on a simple number guessing game where
> the computer picks a random number between 1 and 100 and asks the user to
> take a guess.  This will help demonstrate many basic programming concepts.
> 
> Not sure how to introduce graphics though as so much is relatively abstract.
> 
Have them type in guesses to make something hit a target that appears in 
a different position each time to introduce the notion of 2-D position, 
then you can talk about drawing lines between two positions, then the 
next thing you know they're writing algorithms to compute convex hulls 
(well, maybe not, but you probably get the idea).

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden               http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming  http://pydish.holdenweb.com/
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