Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
In article mailman.459.1288643471.2218.python-l...@python.org, Daniel Fetchinson fetchin...@googlemail.com wrote: My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. What other interests does she have? Might Python play a role? http://micheinnz.livejournal.com/1080735.html (Agent Weasel ended up making a presentation at the NZ PyCon.) -- Aahz (a...@pythoncraft.com) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ Think of it as evolution in action. --Tony Rand -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
On Nov 1, 8:31 pm, Daniel Fetchinson fetchin...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi folks, My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. Do you guys know problems like these? Or a good resource where to look them up? Cheers, Daniel -- Psss, psss, put it down! -http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown There's a great book valled 'Invent your own computer games using Python', aimed at kids, which teaches programming from tne ground up, in the context of writing games, starting with terminal word games, ending with Pygame fullscreen 2D vector graphic bitmaps affairs. http://inventwithpython.com/ The website says aimed at kids 'ages 10 to 12 and upwards', so it sounds like she's on the minimum cusp. (now I come to look at the website, one of the quotes he features is from an Amazon review I wrote months ago! :-) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
Hi folks, My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. Do you guys know problems like these? Or a good resource where to look them up? Cheers, Daniel There's a great book valled 'Invent your own computer games using Python', aimed at kids, which teaches programming from tne ground up, in the context of writing games, starting with terminal word games, ending with Pygame fullscreen 2D vector graphic bitmaps affairs. http://inventwithpython.com/ The website says aimed at kids 'ages 10 to 12 and upwards', so it sounds like she's on the minimum cusp. (now I come to look at the website, one of the quotes he features is from an Amazon review I wrote months ago! :-) Thanks a lot for everyone for the suggestions, I think I'll be able to cook things up from all the references you sent! Cheers, Daniel -- Psss, psss, put it down! - http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
On 2010-11-01, Martin v. Loewis mar...@v.loewis.de wrote: My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. I think anything that has to do with drawing and colors will be attractive, animated if possible. It has to look nice. Take a look at the turtle demos. The book _Simply Scheme_ contains a lot of word problems, which I think is quite nice. possessive,is_palindrom, pig_latin, and so forth might make good Python exercises, too. -- Neil Cerutti -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
playful coding problems for 10 year olds
Hi folks, My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. Do you guys know problems like these? Or a good resource where to look them up? Cheers, Daniel -- Psss, psss, put it down! - http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
This is in JS but have a look here http://github.com/ryanmcgrath/splash On 1 Nov, 20:31, Daniel Fetchinson fetchin...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi folks, My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. Do you guys know problems like these? Or a good resource where to look them up? Cheers, Daniel -- Psss, psss, put it down! -http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
Daniel Fetchinson fetchin...@googlemail.com writes: Hi folks, My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. Do you guys know problems like these? Or a good resource where to look them up? Cheers, Daniel I don't have a list of problems, but I think it's nice to have an environment that provides a very easy way to draw graphics and interact with the user (the way it could be done in the 80s on most personal computers). If you want to use Python, Pyprocessing [1] is an attempt to provide such an environment. Python has a sig that might be relevant: edu-sig [2]. The web page has a lot of links. Finally, I have written an online programming game [3] provisionally called Robo2flags where the player has to direct a robot through a maze to catch all the flags it contains. But the robot can't be controlled in real-time; you have to design a circuit board for it (in fact, a program). It's not quite the finished product, but it works and the server is in Python! It needs a browser that implements canvas though (e.g. Firefox, Chrome, Safari). [1] http://code.google.com/p/pyprocessing/ [2] http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ [3] http://www.marooned.org.uk/robo -- Arnaud -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. I think anything that has to do with drawing and colors will be attractive, animated if possible. It has to look nice. Take a look at the turtle demos. Regards, Martin -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
In message 4ccf3595.2060...@v.loewis.de, Martin v. Loewis wrote: Take a look at the turtle demos. Are turtle graphics still enough to hold the kids’ interest these days? I’ve been visiting a local Computer Clubhouse, and it seems like they mostly spend their time in Google SketchUp and Photoshop. I managed to get one older one interested in Blender. What kind of easy programming exercises could compare with that? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
On 11/1/2010 2:48 PM Martin v. Loewis said... My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. I think anything that has to do with drawing and colors will be attractive, animated if possible. It has to look nice. Take a look at the turtle demos. Six or eight years ago when my kids were about that age I got them to play around with pygame, but frankly, I had more success getting them to read html and identify cut n paste-able fragments to put in their myspaceface places. Emile -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: playful coding problems for 10 year olds
On 11/01/2010 01:31 PM, Daniel Fetchinson wrote: Hi folks, My niece is interested in programming and python looks like a good choice (she already wrote a couple of lines :)) She is 10 and I thought it would be good to have a bunch of playful coding problems for her, stuff that she could code herself maybe after some initial help. Do you guys know problems like these? Or a good resource where to look them up? Cheers, Daniel Does she like robots? My kid's school started a program last year (for 5th and 6th graders) that taught some Python programming in the guise of controlling a small robot. The programs was created by Institute for Personal Robots in Education http://wiki.roboteducation.org/Institute_for_Personal_Robots_in_Education (IPRE) at http://wiki.roboteducation.org/Main_Page. The hardware is the scribbler robot (http://wiki.roboteducation.org/Myro_Hardware) controlled via a bluetooth connection. It has the ability to move forward/backward at varying speeds and turn radii, dragging a pen for drawing if you wish. It has IR and light sensors, and a camera. It also has several programmable LEDs, and can play music and make beeps. The software is a Python library called Myro (http://wiki.roboteducation.org/Myro_Reference_Manual) that allows to control the scribbler interactively (through Idle) or via written/save Python files. By the end of one semester, (some of) the kids were able to program small Python loops and a few if statements based on sensor values for object avoidance or light following and such. Great fun (and a bit of Python programming) was had by all. -- Gary Herron, PhD. Department of Computer Science DigiPen Institute of Technology (425) 895-4418 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
