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Programming for a 9 year old, opinions please
#289964 - 06/21/12 01:56 AM
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My 9 year old wants to learn how to program. His dream would be to make an app on Apple's app store. He also would like to make a Pong type game or something simple. Obviously it would take years to learn but I just don't know what direction to point him in.
Any ideas?
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| Sune |
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> My 9 year old wants to learn how to program. His dream would be to make an app on
> Apple's app store. He also would like to make a Pong type game or something simple.
> Obviously it would take years to learn but I just don't know what direction to point
> him in.
A friend of mine was talking about how his son loves this game:
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669821/carg...amming-concepts
/EDIT
The article also mentions this: http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0
Looks like it could be fun..this made me laugh:
[ATTACHED IMAGE]
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GatKong |
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Tetris Mason
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Re: Programming for a 9 year old, opinions please
[Re: Antny]
#289971 - 06/21/12 05:30 AM
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Drawing from personal experience, when I was a kid, I had a c64... and reading the "manual" learned how to peek and poke, and eventually to make my own sprite (I made michael jackson), then how to move it with the joystick, then how to detect collisions, make sound effects, then sound effects with all three "voices" of the c64... and eventually made my own crappy shooter out of it. I did it out of curiosity, not from an assignemnt or whatever. I also had my best friend Terry who was showing off what he could do on his badass c64, so I was trying to hold my own in the 'hood. The streets were tough back then.
To me, that was a great way to start.
Find a c64 emulator... or some version of basic, he can play with. On top of that, throw in some motivational competition of some kind... like learn it along with him, see who can make the computer do something the other hasn't seen it do yet.
Sounds like some major father/son nerd bonding to me.
Progress reports please.
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| Bekki Doll |
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A cynical yet secular shiny retrogamer, thread ressurector and fan of the word "gay".
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Re: Programming for a 9 year old, opinions please
[Re: Antny]
#290010 - 06/22/12 12:22 AM
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I've been broadening my career options. Someone tapped me on the shoulder to become a teacher of a computer class. So I would up having to write about my technical background.
A part of that background is the LOGO programming language that I learned when I was a very young child. I've been rediscovering it and realized how much I enjoyed playing with that language as a kid. If anyone here remembers LOGOwriter then consider yourself blessed. :-)
If you want to play with it here are some free downloadable MSWLogo packages and some documentation:
http://www.softronix.com/logo.html
For an even more thorough distribution there's Berkeley Logo (UCBLogo):
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/logo.html
For heavy-duty textbook tutorials I can't recommend this MIT Press link enough for use with UCBLogo. While the books are out of print the full text in HTML and PDF is available online for free:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=3987
Even the LSCI company is still around but doing business here with its LOGO-based products which include Lego robotics:
http://www.microworlds.com/
I hope this helps! :-)
--Bekki
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Combating functional illiteracy with latex-clad drama since the '80s, because old video games rule!
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