QUESTION OF THE MONTH : How Do You Inspire a Child's Interest in STEM?

I was a keen radio amateur with a small bedroom to operate from. Not long after that our two children arrived, and a few years later the eldest started school. Not long after that he became intrigued by my BBC Microcomputer, which had arrived a few weeks before. Then he asked if he could have a go at Space Invaders, having seen me get to Level 4 a couple of times. I didn't have to teach him what to do, he'd picked all that up just by watching me. So we swapped seats and off he went. He soon achieved Level 1 and then had to add his name to the Hi-Score list. I assumed that he didn't know how to do that, but between watching me and learning to read both the alphabet and some simple words at school, he'd typed his name in before I could stand up to show him. Weeks later me and the boss went to a school open evening.The English teacher wanted to know how our child had become so good at writing so soon, we told her about Space Invaders. Then she told us that the children at that age were supposed to learn writing in lower-case letters first, not capitals! Oh how we laughed! I think we were lucky she didn't give us each 100 lines.

Sveral years later the kids both had their own computers, one was a 2nd-hand Beeb, the other an Acorn Atom. They would sometimes ask each other for help with Lemmings, or with plotting in advance how to win the next battle in the two-player version of Chocks Away! Then one of the three of us would notice the time, so we'd run down the stairs at 100dB each, just in time for Star Trek, where concepts like the Matter - Anti-Matter converter and the Transporter and people who didn't look like us were easily understood.

So my advice would be to show your own enthusiasm for doing the things you do, and when the kids ask about whatever it is just give simple answers. Often they only need 'Yes' or 'No', they'll come back for more when they need to. Sometimes if I was quick enough I'd have the Speech Synthesiser running on the Beeb before they came into my room, they liked that...

How many days did it take before your name was erased from every Hi-Score list though? 

Too right, beacon_dave! One day our Steven came home from school with a problem. He needed to produce a complete set of Bingo cards for a school fete, but wasn't sure where to start. He'd tried to do it 'by hand' but it was quite difficult to produce more than a few cards that obeyed the rules. So we wrote the rules down, such as the number of columns and rows on each card, the range of numbers allowable in each column, etc. Then we decided that with all these variables, all these cards where duplication is not allowed, and so on, this was a problem for a computer to solve! We then decided to have a race to see which of us could do the job first. He went off to his room and the 2nd-hand Beeb and I went off to my room and my one-owner-from-new Beeb....  Minutes ticked by, there was a frantic clatter of keys from each of us, and the occasional curse; the sound of paper being crumpled and thrown into our respective waste-paper baskets, the occasional noise of a Spangle being unwrapped from his room, from my room the faintly musical scrape of a Zippo lighter being coaxed into life far too often (it was a long time ago, little was known about the harmful effect of gaspers at that time).

I finished and checked my programme, this time it worked fine, I pushed my chair back and headed out onto the landing. Seconds later Steven appeared with a beaming smile on his face! He'd damn near beaten me to it! We watched each other's programme working, I was amazed at how similar they were, maybe there's only one way to skin a cat. He was only about ten at the time, he now develops systems for automatic warehouses all over the world and is the owner of a very proud Dad.

As for the Hi-Score list, now on the RISC-PC, I nearly got to Level Six on Space Invaders the other night!

Too right, beacon_dave! One day our Steven came home from school with a problem. He needed to produce a complete set of Bingo cards for a school fete, but wasn't sure where to start. He'd tried to do it 'by hand' but it was quite difficult to produce more than a few cards that obeyed the rules. So we wrote the rules down, such as the number of columns and rows on each card, the range of numbers allowable in each column, etc. Then we decided that with all these variables, all these cards where duplication is not allowed, and so on, this was a problem for a computer to solve! We then decided to have a race to see which of us could do the job first. He went off to his room and the 2nd-hand Beeb and I went off to my room and my one-owner-from-new Beeb....  Minutes ticked by, there was a frantic clatter of keys from each of us, and the occasional curse; the sound of paper being crumpled and thrown into our respective waste-paper baskets, the occasional noise of a Spangle being unwrapped from his room, from my room the faintly musical scrape of a Zippo lighter being coaxed into life far too often (it was a long time ago, little was known about the harmful effect of gaspers at that time).

I finished and checked my programme, this time it worked fine, I pushed my chair back and headed out onto the landing. Seconds later Steven appeared with a beaming smile on his face! He'd damn near beaten me to it! We watched each other's programme working, I was amazed at how similar they were, maybe there's only one way to skin a cat. He was only about ten at the time, he now develops systems for automatic warehouses all over the world and is the owner of a very proud Dad.

As for the Hi-Score list, now on the RISC-PC, I nearly got to Level Six on Space Invaders the other night!