BEN WRITES -

oh, one problem - it won't even be a full semester course, but just 5 weeks -

the

foundation class also spends 5 weeks on sound and 5 on electronics. not my hoice, just the way the curriculum is structured. so what i'd want to be able

to do is get students going with python, understand some basic programming concepts like variables, math, strings, functions, and hopefully events, and be able to make something simple but visually pleasing. does that sound possible?

Here in Pythonland all is possible. Seems to me Python with Numeric and VPython (see http://virtualphoton.pc.cc.cmu.edu/projects/visual/) is the best toolset you are apt to find to accomplish your mission. Have you looked at VPython and its demos yet? ART