Which kid friendly coding recommendation

tturt said:

Novice wanting to introduce a 10 and a 12 yr old to coding. Searched online. Would appreciate your input.

Click to expand...

I write code, Have for many years and to first learn how to code go here.

This is the best start to learn coding.

Dark Basic Pro Open Source - TheGameCreators

tturt said:

Novice wanting to introduce a 10 and a 12 yr old to coding. Searched online. Would appreciate your input.

Click to expand...

If you want a gamified entrance, I suggest taking the games by Zachtronics, especially Shenzen I/O.

We're teaching kids that age to program Lego robots in Python. I think 10 is a bit young. It will depend upon the kid. 12 should be OK.

bought boxed coding game last yr for child
she's liked online coding games better

Dark basic pro is the best for kids, It also has many good examples to learn from.

Here is a program in dark basic pro with only 16 lines of code.


sync rate 0
do
s#=rnd(3)
lock pixels
for y=1 to screen height()
For x=1 to screen width()
inc z
if s#=1 then dot x,y,sin(x)*atan(y)*2000000
if s#=2 then dot x,y,sin(x)*atan(y)*2000000
if s#=3 then dot x,y,cos(x)*((3)^2*sin(y)^2)*200000
if s#=0 then dot x,y,cos(x)*(8/sin(y))*200000
next x
next y
unlock pixels
sync
loop

tturt said:

Novice wanting to introduce a 10 and a 12 yr old to coding. Searched online. Would appreciate your input.

Click to expand...

I was thinking about doing the same. I've considered getting Rasberry Pi kits for them to put together and program on. Python seem to be a good language to start with.....which could translate to real word applications easily.

RaymondG said:

I was thinking about doing the same. I've considered getting Rasberry Pi kits for them to put together and program on. Python seem to be a good language to start with.....which could translate to real word applications easily.

Click to expand...

Yup. That's our configuration. We actually have a kid who looks like he's 7 or 8 in the group, but his father works with him, and I suspect he does a lot of the coding. The problem with middle school age is probably more in keeping their attention than in actual ability. A couple of kids with a parent participating would be more likely to work than our lab situation.

Especially for the 10 year old I would consider Scratch. Both of my sons used it when they were younger. (One now wants nothing to do with programming, while the other just got his master's degree in CS. Go figure.)

hedrick said:

Yup. That's our configuration. We actually have a kid who looks like he's 7 or 8 in the group, but his father works with him, and I suspect he does a lot of the coding. The problem with middle school age is probably more in keeping their attention than in actual ability. A couple of kids with a parent participating would be more likely to work than our lab situation.

Click to expand...

Any kits you recommend? I want them to have fun setting it up and using it.....to try and make them forget about the initial difficulty of learning a language.

Scratch and Python seem to be fairly popular kid languages. You can also get things like GameMaker and RPG Maker that provide fairly solid GUI interfaces for designing games while also teaching them how to write procedures and conditions.

MSW Logo is a fun one that also helps with mathematical concepts like angles and measurements.
MSWLogo - Download

While requiring a bit of setup (and reasonable amount of space on the computer) VB.NET is also a good environment for putting together a tangible application. That might be better for when they're a bit older. I started learning an older version (VB6) when I was about 12 and picked it up fairly quickly, but I had a lot of face-to-face help from my school teacher, brother, and brother-in-law.

Started coding in Basic at about 10 on a Vic 20.
You can start with something like Small Basic
Home

GORILLAS QBASIC : Microsoft : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I remember the programming-oriented kids in middle school modifying this game. They modified the physics, the explosions, the movement after a round, everything.