[Edu-sig] Post request and Dead-link note

[Dean Goodmanson]

Dear Educators and Programmers,

I had indented to shorten this off-line written post but in the event of the 
last few days lull am going to lob it out there. Please bear with me.
I have been enjoying the EDU-SIG list for a few weeks and Python for 
slightly more.  I have been doing C/C++ (and some Java/C# exploration…does 
that make me a C? or Cn programmer?) development for the last 3+ years.
My current educator associates consist of my sister who is a 3rd grade 
teacher and my wife who is certified in high school English. I find the 
list’s educator discussions and insight very interesting.  My wife’s has 
little programming background but showed interest in the linguistics aspect 
of a language.  (Last time she programmed was with BASIC on an Apple II but 
her teacher essentially would write the student’s program whenever they 
asked for any type of help.)  During the peak of her interest I suggested 
Java as I had heard it was the language of choice for intro to programming.
We didn’t get past the intro and first chapter of Bruce Eckel’s “Thinking in 
Java”. We never made it to the syntactical nuances and programming concepts 
of Java.  Since, she has pretty much lost interest but still willing to let 
me discuss with her enjoyable Python language nuances such as “pickling” and 
catching my slip-ups including “Python’s style is more restrictive than 
Perl.”
I’m speculating her interests are in the logical control & communication 
concepts, not the computer concepts- -er, perhaps, How do you [programmers] 
describe, implement and guide an automated process [To Users, Implementers & 
Machines] through a computer language instead of How do you make a computer 
remember a piece of information and it’s reference to it.  (Memory 
management topics are my worst fear for intro language distractions.)
I’ve personally enjoyed the Learning to Program book primarily because he 
explains fundamental programming concepts well and (lo and behold!) with a 
language that’s easily decipherable.  It’s nice to map and re-enforce 
concepts in one language & framework to those in another, while discovering 
overlooked ones.
So I’ve focused my attention on my 2 and a half year old's computer 
interests: He can’t control a mouse, but he can control the motion buttons 
on my plotter...too bad those buttons are right next to the other controls 
and grab-tempting moving paper and pen carousel.  My initial goal is to 
develop a joystick control by implementing a joystick reader in python to 
interpret and then send out HPGL commands to the plotter. PyGame and 
ActiveState’s tools seem to be appropriate here.  (Having trouble finding an 
HPGL spec, any links would be appreciated.)  Last time I was excited about 
this kind of thing was with my Tandy Color Computer with BASIC and an analog 
joystick interface.  I didn’t get to it for hardware, cost and computer 
usability reasons.  Python has filled the gap for a simple language and 
hopefully PyGame with a simple Joystick interface.  My son has most letter 
and single digit (decimal ;-) ) number recognition but doesn’t really 
understand measurement applications.  He happily yells out “26!” whenever we 
ask him the time or a measurement.  I’m curious to see how a controller 
scenario and/or Logo type application will help him grasp these concepts.

In my experience I have come to some conclusions you may be interested in:

1.	Could this kind of thing (robotics, or even 2D robotics…) motivate 
students to learning an all purpose language?
(I certainly enjoy controlling and gathering data with a computer from 
external devices. In the plotter case researching and building the tool is 
more fun than using it.)
2. There seems to be a lot of potential applications for this kind of 
physical input/output scenario.
Essential elements are the Data acquisition device and an output device 
ranging from a graphical display to printers, robots, switches and servos.  
Input projects could range from weather analysis to health equipment 
scenarios (heartbeat/EKG) to applications of a decibal indicator or light 
sensor.  Output projects pretty much fall into the printing and robotic’s 
categories. Do robots controlled by algorithms and mathematical formulas 
(gnu-plot?) beyond just a simple set of commands spark a student’s interest?

I thought I read something at oreillynet.com about Python Lego Mindstorms 
project. Has it gone anywhere?


Best Regards,

Dean Goodmanson


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