programming-for-kids

I really enjoy finding new ways to introduce her into how computers think, in the same time, I have to constantly level up my game, as I am competing with tiktok, instagram, youtube, netflix.. etc. So I have to come up with new incentives, and more and more interesting projects, e.g. I printed a tshirt with some of her code, or made a huge poster with one of the turtle images she made (https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/blob/master/...), or sometimes its pure bribery, like buying robux. When I was her age, I spent hours just reading random man pages, pretty much because cartoon network was showing the same episode of dexter's laboratory for the 25th time. The kids her age are growing in a strange era, programs will control their life, wether they want it or not, so it will be great if they can debug :)

Ah! I didnt mean to show it off, just my desk is a mess.. Yea its a cyberdeck I am building with hardwired Atreus directly connected to pi zero gpios and using libuinput to make a software keyboard, which works amazing btw. I am making it to init directly into getty without login (with busybox init), so it boots directly in usable /bin/bash in only 2-3 seconds, and all the available programs are simple python programs (ls, cp, mv, a basic line editor, touchtyping game, hangman etc) and the keyboard itself is a simple python program that basically scans the matrix and emits events to uinput. The frame is from plywood. And I am trying to make it like a 'scavenger hunt' experience for my daughter, I will put special codes in various places in the programs or on the file system with different difficulty, and I can challenge her to find them.

You can just generate the tiffs yourself with different colors, border_color is the color of the border and the comments https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/blob/8d14a24... (if you are talking about the programming time game)

Sorry, I copied ND and NC by mistake, I just pushed https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/commit/8d14a... to move to CC-BY-4.0 (removing NC and NC)

Doesn't seem to be a problem for OP since the files are available on GitHub [1] but they choose to leave downloads up on their domain. 1: https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/tree/master/...

More from the author: https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids

I think most kids can learn basic programming and have different attitude towards software. Programs are going to determine their lives, from the tiktok feed algorithm to surveillance to filtering their CV for a job and even evaluating their job performance or paying their taxes. There was a story recently where toasters were bricked because they received the microwave binary update. Can you imagine? You wont be able to make toast if you cant hack our toaster. Not to mention the new scams, from NFTs to ransomwares, I have gotten to the point of asking my daughter to tell me for each app she installs 'how it makes money from you, especially if its free' . What big tech has been doing for the last 20 years has successfully disconnected the user from the computer, the next generation was supposed to be the most 'technologically advanced' gen

backspace and enter are especially an issue, i teach her to use ctrl+h and ctrl+j capslock being control, on windows i made https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/tree/master/... to help with that

I dont know about the 'if they cant grasp BASIC' thing, but Scratch is not as inclusive as people think. My daughter was almost repulsed by it, but actually when I made a "laptop" (https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/blob/master/...) of a pi zero and a small screen that boots into vim, and she started to make python do things, basic math things, she was much more engaged. We made few arduino nano led controller, she helped to solder the mic sensors and etc, and also to program the delay between the 'claps', it just feels so real. I also bought pi4 game hat (https://www.waveshare.com/game-hat.htm) that she assembled herself, and then I uploaded a 'hello world' snes game, showed her some assembly. She played a lot of 'human resource machine' and '7 billion humans', and I was paying her sometimes 1 euro per completed level, and t

She is almost 11 now, but we are coding every day for almost a year now (I am logging the progress here: https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids). Its often we go to the number line :) but because we usually make games, and it was easy to get negative numbers when you go out of the screen, so it "clicked". The whole game was her idea and we started working on it about 5 months ago.

I was thinking of making my kid's login auto-run a fullscreen VICE C=64 Here's another approach https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids

I built a small raspberry pi zero "laptop"[1] with 4" screen and usb battery that does not have X and inits directly into openvt that starts vim (takes like 2 seconds to boot) and it has python and you can directly write pixels into /dev/fb0, there are also console games that are quite fun. The best part was "no distraction environment" no internet, no messages, nothing, you have to be bored a bit to get creative. Though my daughter doesnt use it much (she did in the beginning), it is super hard to compete with modern entertainment which is so reachable and so instant. All kids get what they want immediately after they want it. I want a football, order online, it arrives same day. I want to watch this movie, they start watching. I am trying to create some time per day, in a safe space where she can be creative and bored. [1]: https://gith