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Free 1-hour Coding For Kids Workshop

Discussion in 'Schoolgoers & Teens' started by Induslady, Aug 26, 2016.

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  1. Jey

    Jey Administrator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    jskls likes this.
  2. JustAnotherMom

    JustAnotherMom Platinum IL'ite

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    @Jey

    I have a daughter who is a senior. She had a chance and wanted to take a school offered introduction to coding while she was a freshman, but it was colliding with lacrosse and I asked her to choose lacrosse. Fast forward, she refused to do anything with computer Science, or technology even on summer.
    I have not put my son in any scratch program which was offered in his elementary as all of them are after school classes, and now I was thinking of trying something out this year in coding, and he joined football which is taking too much time from all of us.

    In simple words, both kids have no exposure to coding.
     
  3. KashmirFlower

    KashmirFlower IL Hall of Fame

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    @Jey Thank you for tagging. My son is still young, just 3.4 years. But I think basic website development(HTML and Javascript, Stylesheets) would be interesting for kids and they can learn easily from 8 or 9 years. Then on wards based on their interest they can learn more like jQuery, HTML5 and other language syntax, one language they learn all would be similar. But I don't know yet if middle schools have it as a subject or not.
     
  4. jskls

    jskls IL Hall of Fame

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    @Jey

    Thanks for the tag! My elder one didnt seem to be interested in coding though we tried using Khan Academy for designing Greeting cards through basic coding. With younger one she went for a camp where she got exposure to HTML/CSS and Animation ! She seems to be interested in animation. This summer we did expose her to fundamental Javascript again using resources from Khan Academy! She got the basic concept and understanding.

    If basic concepts in computer science is introduced at middle school level (mandatorily) these kids will atleast have a chance to explore before jumping into conclusion that they don't like it!

    Even at high school level where we live, there are limited choice in electives for either iOS programming / Python / ruby on rails. In general computer programming invites more interest from boys :)
     
  5. PavithraS

    PavithraS Platinum IL'ite

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    @Jey, Appreciate the tag. But my kid is just 4 ! And all these Computer Language you people speak is Greek and Latin for me ! :smile: But if there is a possibility to introduce my child this early into programming and coding, I would love to do so, since Computer and Robotics is the present and future in education and development. I am more than happy to receive any guidance in the matter from people in the sector like you.

    Regards,
    Pavithra
     
  6. Gauri03

    Gauri03 Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @Jey

    My son started at 5 with CargoBot for the iPad -- an app that teaches programming concepts like looping, branching, function calls using a game. It is targeted at older children, but he managed to work through it with our help. After that we started Scratch. He did quite a few projects of his own but ended up spending most of his time playing games. I found scratch too open-ended for real learning. He wasn't making progress the way we had hoped, so we bought a book that starts with Scratch, works through a project, then introduces Python and a Python-based project. We teach from the book and he completes challenges as prescribed by the text. I have found that this approach works better than letting him loose on the Scratch website. As Soka mentioned, it is more important to inculcate CS thinking than merely teaching syntax. We've been working through the CS unplugged material since the beginning of the year. One of his favorite games is decimal to binary conversion. He used to work with 1s and 0s printed on flash cards. I would say a number and he would flip the cards to show the binary form. Now he works it out in his head.

    We took off the proverbial training wheels this summer and dunked him headlong into Python. He is able to write simple programs using conditional statements and loops. I build robots with him using a Lego Mindstorms kit. So far we have stuck to using the graphical language that comes with the kit. My goal for this year is to teach him to use Python to program his Mindstorms robots. Our first real project is a "Lego picker", a robot that can sweep Lego pieces from all over his room and dump them into a bin. Will save me from the infernal pain of stepping on a Lego brick in the middle of the night! : )
     
  7. KashmirFlower

    KashmirFlower IL Hall of Fame

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    :grinning:
    Just wow! I also would like to build one robot like that ,:grinning::grinning::grinning: how difficult is it?

    All kids rooms need that one, if they can build by themselves to do their clean up job how interesting that would be,

    Is your going to patent that one?:grinning: He is a very smart kid


    I just checked smileys got deleted. I will add them from the IL site.


    Please give some links or more info etc for this sweep robot

    My Hknows somebody trying building a robot , I thought wow.

    I know that GM robotics center allows kids , high school kids I think , but don't know much what they learn, etc
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2016
    PavithraS likes this.
  8. kanmani

    kanmani Junior IL'ite

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    Hi,
    I have a fresh middle-schooler who has done Lego robotics for a couple of years in elementary. Wondering which of these langs HTML, Jacascript or Python could be best used for robotics programming?
    My kid would like to do something like Gauri03 mentioned combining robotics and coding.
     
  9. Induslady

    Induslady Administrator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Hi Kanmani,

    Looks like Python is popularly used in Robotics Programming, next to C++/Java.

    Refer - Lego Mindstorms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
  10. Gauri03

    Gauri03 Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Thanks! : ) It is not a quick project. Will require time but I wouldn't say it is difficult. Many variations of these cleaner Lego bots already exist - Lego floor cleaners, Lego picker uppers, even Lego vacuum cleaners. Here are a few -




    This is similar to what we are trying to create -


    If you are interested in exposing your child to robotics, you can check whether his school offers a program for 5+ year olds. Many school districts have these. If they don't, then you and other involved parents can offer to start the program. School's are generally happy to have parents take initiative. Here's an example of one such program -

    The other option is to go it alone. Buy a kit, and learn by trial and error. There are numerous blogs by Mindstroms enthusiasts that lay out step by step instructions to build and code these robots.

    Python is the best language to get a child started with programming. It is simple, intuitive, readable, yet very powerful in terms of applicability. The child can have his/her first program up and running almost right away, and the results can be viewed real time in an interactive shell.
     

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