General > General Technical Chat
Learning Simple Programming for a Ten Year Old?
BrianHG:
If you look here: https://games.freebasic.net/listalpha.php
You will find a ton of games. I know they are too complex to begin with, but it may help add interest.
Some of these games have their source code available.
Some fun games:
Axiebal 7 https://games.freebasic.net/dumpbyid.php?input=114 (Though a 2D game, it renders the screen using 3D geometry. Surprisingly good graphics and music, fun, for anyone who likes a Marble Madness style game. (You can set the GFP to full 1080p res in the game options menu.))
Asteroids https://games.freebasic.net/dumpbyid.php?input=148 (This one includes the source code)
eti:
I'd advise to skip that sterile, toxic and egotistical path (look at silicon valley types for confirmation of this) and maybe guide him into a PROPER engineering career, one where laws of physics.and constants are engineered, Vs the weekly whims of some gen X "engineer" at Google.
Stand him in good stead by lighting the fire of enthusiasm for PHYSICAL WORLD OBJECTS & it's far more rewarding.
rstofer:
BASIC is pretty much a dead issue. I would expect anything with feedback to be more entertaining. To that end, I recommend any of the 'arduino starter kits for kids' (yes, search Amazon for that phrase...)
https://www.amazon.com/ELEGOO-Project-Tutorial-Controller-Projects/dp/B01D8KOZF4
The tutorials start from the ever popular blinking LED up through motors, 7 segment displays and a host of other gadgets. The tutorials are great!
The code is presented in C. The end goal is to build up the knowledge and confidence to move on to the robotics.
I see the manufacturer thinks the kit is suitable for 10+. Clearly, it is going to depend on the kid and what level of interest they have.
The thing about Arduino is that it is all over the place. There are thousands of projects to duplicate and coding is generally simple. Worst case, Copy-And-Paste works well.
A wee bit of adult supervision in the early stages probably helps. The software installation is straightforward and printing "Hello World" is very well documented.
https://arduinogetstarted.com/tutorials/arduino-hello-world
There are many other tutorials at that site.
I'm not aware of any version of BASIC that natively talks to stepper motors over GPIO pins. Maybe something could be done with the Raspberry Pi but I suspect it will be a lot of work. I did a lot of similar work with the 8080/8085 and Palo Alto Tiny Basic but that was about 40 years ago. We've moved on...
rstofer:
I have a couple of these systems and they do indeed run Microsoft BASIC. "Some assembly required!" doesn't begin to cover it.
https://rc2014.co.uk/
BrianHG:
--- Quote from: eti on November 12, 2022, 12:03:43 am ---I'd advise to skip that sterile, toxic and egotistical path (look at silicon valley types for confirmation of this) and maybe guide him into a PROPER engineering career, one where laws of physics.and constants are engineered, Vs the weekly whims of some gen X "engineer" at Google.
Stand him in good stead by lighting the fire of enthusiasm for PHYSICAL WORLD OBJECTS & it's far more rewarding.
--- End quote ---
We are talking about a 10 year old learning to develop a skill set, not decide their future life yet. Learning how to program can lead to learning physics as well.
I say fourfathom should choose something they can do together.
If fourfathom likes/knows Basic, or any other language, let him start there if he wants.
I'm 100% self taught from the start. I went to programming first as a means to learn how to control hardware, though I did begin because of the games which were available on the Atari 800.
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