Python (Minecraft-Pi) Workshop

2014 August 12-13

This two-day workshop was for students with some prior programming experience who wanted to learn some Python.
There were three attendees, aged 11, 15 and 16. Two were bilingual in Japanese and English, and the third was learning English. All had programmed in Scratch before and one had some experience with Mindstorms. This was the first time any of them had typed code to create programs!

We used Raspberry Pis with Minecraft-pi, and the Geany editor for programming in Python.

Day One:

1. Python basics: editor, running programs, input and output to console and easygui
2. For and while loops, if..elif..else. 
3. Introduction to Minecraft Python 

Day Two:

1. Functions. 
2. Lists.
3. Project work
4. Presentation of work to parents

Files used for teaching are here:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_YN1DuZcfFHa24tczRZMDBuMHc&usp=sharing

We were visited on the second day by Prof. Inoue of Hiroshima City University (professor of computer science)

We made some short stop-motion clips of the projects. None of the building was done manually in Minecraft. itself. Everything was built by the Python programs.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_YN1DuZcfFHMmJBR3VETTNEalU/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_YN1DuZcfFHV0dDbVlPSUs1cVk/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_YN1DuZcfFHbjV5by04c1d3Yzg/edit?usp=sharing

Karuizawa Summer School Scratch Workshop

19-31 July 2014

There were 80 participants in this summer school, aged 13 and 14. All students took four two-hour long Scratch programming lessons, in classes of 27 students. There were four university student assistants, and my son, helping me teach each class. The following was presented during the first two lessons:

• Scratch UI - getting around and getting things done
• Loops - forever, repeat, forever if, repeat until
• if, then, else, nested ifs, testing for conditions and events
• variables
• broadcasts
• tips for building games and animations that connected to the summer school theme

Files used for teaching:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_YN1DuZcfFHQkFMV2tlLWhYR2c&usp=sharing

Students were placed in teams of 3 for the final two lessons, and given the task of creating a game or animation related to the summer school experience, and to explore the possibilities of using games and animations to draw attention to an important issue.

The task was quite demanding for only 8 hours of class, including presentations, so unfortunately many projects were not finished. Projects can be viewed at the summer school Scratch account:

http://scratch.mit.edu/users/ISAKsummerschool/projects/

Students were offered a Raspberry Pi to take home. 40 were taken. There were many positive comments about the course from students and other teachers.