playful coding problems for 10 year olds

[Gary Herron]

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