salmoneous wrote:
Glen, Come on. Are you now or have you ever been a kid? Ever met one? The first step is to get someone interested and excited about programming, not to train them to write 60,000 line programs. Are you opposed to letting people play with Lincoln Logs, since they violate all sorts of builing code and engineering rules?
Well if I had to design a course I think I might make some kind of framework that was a game. Probably some kind of game where robot tanks run around and try to shot each other. Or maybe multi-player monster rancher or whatever.
The assignment would be to build an AI program that controlled the tank. The kids would be in large groups of 6 or more.
I would play the role of project manager for all the groups making sure they weren't headed for failure. I would also run some version control for the kids.
In fact there was a really good game just like this for the Amiga. So I know the concept works. [Oh my god I'm on topic again in rec.games.video.classic]
I would also group the girls in different groups than the boys so that they could get a fair shot at the "male dominated industry".
I would indeed use a language with lots of features. If a group wanted to learn OO and make a super robot they should be able to. Its war! More likely they will use arrays and other datastructures to help the tank make logic choices about what to do next.
I have know idea how it would be graded. If the budget was large enough I would use real tanks. Glen.