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Robotiky: Make coding into child's play

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21–25 of 25 posts

Re: Robotiky: Make coding into child's play

#21

Their very first argument is "But we also know that kids love playing games, interacting with real objects, and making things." Childhood should be about goofing off on tricycles, playing tag, and creating awesome Lego towers from a big box of blocks. I love programming now, but if I had started coding as young as the children in the video, I don't know if I'd be as jazzed about it as an adult. Maybe the kids who pla…

> if I had started coding as young as the children in the video, I don't know if I'd be as jazzed about it as an adult.

I don't see why this is a bad thing.

Re: Robotiky: Make coding into child's play

#22

Their very first argument is "But we also know that kids love playing games, interacting with real objects, and making things." Childhood should be about goofing off on tricycles, playing tag, and creating awesome Lego towers from a big box of blocks. I love programming now, but if I had started coding as young as the children in the video, I don't know if I'd be as jazzed about it as an adult. Maybe the kids who pla…

> Childhood should be about goofing off on tricycles, playing tag, and creating awesome Lego towers from a big box of blocks. I love programming now, but if I had started coding as young as the children in the video, I don't know if I'd be as jazzed about it as an adult.

I spent my childhood doing all those things -- including programming from a fairly early age. I'm still jazzed about it as an adult. In fact, moreso than lots of people I know who do it professionally, but got into it later.

Re: Robotiky: Make coding into child's play

#23

Personally I really like the Lego NXT sets. All three of my younger brothers had the opportunity to use them through after school programs and it was a great introduction to simple programming. I guess the disadvantage is the higher price point.

As you may know, Lego now has the EV3, which includes some enhancements.

Re: Robotiky: Make coding into child's play

#24

Their very first argument is "But we also know that kids love playing games, interacting with real objects, and making things." Childhood should be about goofing off on tricycles, playing tag, and creating awesome Lego towers from a big box of blocks. I love programming now, but if I had started coding as young as the children in the video, I don't know if I'd be as jazzed about it as an adult. Maybe the kids who pla…

My son, who is 9, has been asking me to teach him how to mod Minecraft. He is obsessed with the game, which makes it a great incentive to learn to code. I am setting up a dev environment this week to do simple Forge mods.

Re: Robotiky: Make coding into child's play

#25
post #16
post #2

Those bump sensors would be snapped off in ten minutes in my household. How hard would it have been for them to slap a Sharp Infrared sensor or two on there? http://www.sharpsme.com/optoelectronics/sensors/distance-mea... Having come back from Botball, I have to say that overall this robot doesn't feel fully baked.

Swapping out the bump sensors for IR is something that we really want to do, we just have to finalise the manufacturing details. The robot shown is just a prototype, the shipped product will have at least the functionality we have stated - and probably a lot more.

I'm sorry, but what? This is robot design 101. How could you not have included this in your initial prototype?
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