[Edu-sig] Intro and question: assignments/projects for year end

[Jason Cunliffe]

Hi Sheila

Congratulations.. I would love to know what _did_ you say in your speech?

Here are my enthusiatic, (but propably over ambitious) suggestions. I think
since time is so short, you may be better off helping them enagage in the
wide world of Python, and give them motivation and basic skills so they can
keep going by themselves with it.


A. INSPIRATION: TOOLKITS & MODULES
One one the great virtues of Python is its community and the scope of
contributed nmodules. So I think one appraoch might be to explore with your
students The Vaults of Parnassus http://www.vex.net/parnassus
This will expose them to the possibilities and also offer endless examples
of code.
Perhaps pick something simple and show them how to make use of it. This is
valuable skill which will carry them way beyond the precious few weeks they
have allocated.

I think learning to read real code is half the battle. Fortuntately
readability is Python's #1  virtue once you get past those __wierd__
__words__.

Books and tutorials often fail because as a newbie one does not understnd
where they are going or why. Or it just plain boring!
As babies we did not 'study' grammer, we are born into a world of bustling
taklative adults with whom we are motivated to communicate, by love hunger
expression etc.  This is 'natural learning' and is incredibly effective
since the wrl began. How thento induce even a littlw of that in students
learning another Human langauge [..in this instance Python]?

B. FEEDBACK
Do something which allows interactive feedback - some
visible/audible/tangible results.
Perhaps graphic, perhaps sound, text manipulation or web related. Not as
distraction but to see how one can use python to build up things and connect
them to others.


C. RESOURCES
Among the wonderful modules you should definitely stop at Kirby's pages.


Check out VPython
http://virtualphoton.pc.cc.cmu.edu/projects/visual/
2 weeks background ok.

PIL - Python Imaging Library
http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/
Once installed you can immediately start manipulating images with minimal
Python experience.
This very manageable. PIL has good clear PDF docs you print out.
2 weeks background ok.

Have fun with language. Perhaps there are some poets in the class..
http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~steele/sources/wordnet-python.html


SNACK
http://www.speech.kth.se/snack/
<quote>
The Snack Sound Toolkit is designed to be used with a scripting language
such as Tcl/Tk or Python. Using Snack you can create create powerful
multi-platform audio applications with just a few lines of code.
</quote>

MIDI
http://www2.hku.nl/~simon2/python/

BLENDER
http://www.blender.nl
3D Modelling and animation software with game engine
and a Python API:
http://www.janw.gothere.uk.com/documentation.html

Blender itself woudl take up all your time to learn, but despite theis there
is great value in discussing it with your sutdents a littel and revierwing
some of the excellent but eclectic Python materials forit. I imagina at leat
one of your tudents will keep going after the course is over:

Start here =>a nice list of scripts:
http://honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de/~strubi/3d/python/
for example in 15 minutes you can look over the illustrated scripts at:
http://home.iae.nl/users/exwhale/blender/main/scripts.html
take even a sinmple one for dsicussion:

Some of the Python Blender sites are very good intro tutuorial sites, becuse
they are writeen by motivated oung hackers taching each other. they don't
suffer from too many years of CS training.. some are very well illustrated
and broken down into good clear step by step common language. I recommend
you to look at the bilingual pages at
http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/index_prog_python.h
tm
and  then rad through the sequence
http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/python_script01.htm
http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/python_script02.htm
etc..

An another is
Crystal Space
http://crystal.linuxgames.com/
  0.14 -  A free portable 3D engine written in C++, with python scripting
support.

Adn lastly.. A 16-year old LA hacker's page
http://jesswei.tripod.com/programs.html


hth
./Jason
___________________________________________________________
Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS['Interactive Art and Technology']

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sheila King" <sheila@thinkspot.net>
To: <edu-sig@python.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 2:58 AM
Subject: [Edu-sig] Intro and question: assignments/projects for year end


> Hello,
>
> My name is Sheila King. I'm a high school AP Computer Science teacher.
Heh. AP
> Exam is tomorrow! I've been learning Python for myself since January. If
you
> read comp.lang.python or the Python Tutor List, you've seen my posts
there,
> probably.
>
> Anyway, for the last two or so weeks of the school year, what I'm going to
have
> my AP Comp Sci students do is this:
> They get a choice of two possible types of projects:
> (1) CMU graphics. (this is what all of my students did last year.)
> (2) Learn Python.
>
> I must've given a pretty convincing speech about Python, because 10 of my
17
> students picked to do Python. I was surprised. I thought most of them
would want
> to do a graphics project. (Last year's class wrote a number of different
games.)
>
> Anyhow...here's my question:
> I'm looking for suggested projects or programming problems for my
students.
>
> They have had a year of C++, and some of them are excellent. Some are only
> barely proficient. I know the good ones will pick up Python easily. I hope
the
> others will be able to do so, as well. It's going to be sort of
independent
> study. (I'm putting several HTML tutorials on their desktops...)
>
> 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.