If they only have about two weeks to "learn" Python, and write a small program or two, what types of things could I have them do? We won't have time to get into GUIs. These can't be very ambitious projects, due to the limited amount of time.
If they can't do GUI's, let's see if we can write something that lets your students play around with graphics. For the CS3 class, the last 2 weeks of the introductory CS class covers a barrage of topics, including fractals: http://www-inst.EECS.Berkeley.EDU/~cs3/lectures/l23/l23.html To make this accessible to Scheme students, we provide them with a simplified interface to a Scheme canvas, using a teachpack for DrScheme: http://www-inst.EECS.Berkeley.EDU/~cs3/misc/graphics-teachpack.scm which allows them to play around with fractal programs without worrying too much: all they need to really remember is (clear-graphics) (draw-line) which still gives them enough power to draw pretty intricate looking fractals. I've almost completed a version in Python that works similarly to the Scheme teachpack. Give me a day or so. *grin* Ideally, a student can do something like: ### from graphics import * clearGraphics() drawLine(0, 0, 100, 0) drawLine(100, 0, 100, 100) drawLine(100, 100, 0, 100) drawLine(0, 100, 0, 0) ### to get a box drawn on the screen. And they can write procedures that generate general boxes, given the upper-left/bottom-right coordinates. What I have right now uses Tkinter and almost works --- I just need to finish some of the implementation details.