After School club projects

I'm about on the same page, trying to figure some projects that are not just programming and can be "pre packaged" for a ~45 minute or less session.

We are starting rolling with the Geekbus from Geekdom, the idea is to go to middle schools and high schools (10-15 years age group) and have kids arrive in groups for about 45 minutes and have a hand on experience with electronics, computer science, networking, etc.

Right now we have some simple projects with Arduino, but the time we have is so limited that we have the projects almost pre-wired and the kids only need to add few connections to the Arduino board, power and load and run the sketch for the project.

We are now putting together some project with simple Lego Mindstorm projects.

I've been struggling to find something interesting and easy to setup and quick to put together but with a Raspberry Pi, now that the Model A is becoming available in the US, if we are able to power it with a WiFi dongle included so we can use the same Netbooks we use for the Arduinos as a power source and console via vnc, that will be a plus since we won't have to deal with extra setup to provide power to the Rpis (we have two generators on the bus.

We are also planning some summer camps at Geekdom where we'll have more time and better space to setup stuff, so we can go for more complex projects, I found that the project that Drew showed during the webinar about driving a stepper motor from Scratch could be an interesting and cool experience for the kids.

I'll share whatever we learn putting this stuff together.

Cheers

Jorge

I'm about on the same page, trying to figure some projects that are not just programming and can be "pre packaged" for a ~45 minute or less session.

We are starting rolling with the Geekbus from Geekdom, the idea is to go to middle schools and high schools (10-15 years age group) and have kids arrive in groups for about 45 minutes and have a hand on experience with electronics, computer science, networking, etc.

Right now we have some simple projects with Arduino, but the time we have is so limited that we have the projects almost pre-wired and the kids only need to add few connections to the Arduino board, power and load and run the sketch for the project.

We are now putting together some project with simple Lego Mindstorm projects.

I've been struggling to find something interesting and easy to setup and quick to put together but with a Raspberry Pi, now that the Model A is becoming available in the US, if we are able to power it with a WiFi dongle included so we can use the same Netbooks we use for the Arduinos as a power source and console via vnc, that will be a plus since we won't have to deal with extra setup to provide power to the Rpis (we have two generators on the bus.

We are also planning some summer camps at Geekdom where we'll have more time and better space to setup stuff, so we can go for more complex projects, I found that the project that Drew showed during the webinar about driving a stepper motor from Scratch could be an interesting and cool experience for the kids.

I'll share whatever we learn putting this stuff together.

Cheers

Jorge

> ... but the time we have is so limited that we have the projects almost pre-wired and the kids only need to add few connections to the Arduino board, power and load and run the sketch for the project.

I suppose any exposure to electronics is a good thing, but it frightens me to see

such limited exposure hyped as a meaningful learning experience.  I can't think

of any other skill, whether it be learning a sport, or a musical instrument, or

a foreign language, or an academic subject, where a single 45-minute exposure

is so hyped.

I am reminded of Little Jack Horner, who stuck in his thumb, pulled out a plum,

and thought he was really cool, when he wasn't.

> We are also planning some summer camps at Geekdom where we'll have more time and better space to setup stuff, ...

I like that plan a lot better.

There's something in particular that rubs me the wrong way about handing a

beginner a complicated program and suggesting that they try to modify it,

on the theory that software maintenance is something that can be done by

rank beginners, without any programming skill and without any understanding

of how the program works.

Yes, you can find where it says "green" and change that to "blue", and

maybe that will have the desired effect.  And yes, there is a certain amount

of trial-and-error involved in real-world programming, particularly in maintaining

someone else's code.  But the goal in programming is to understand what

you're doing, not just thrash around until the program seems to work.