If I had the time to construct exercises I would use a very primitive game engine to teach these things. Depending on the students math level you could focus on

If I had the time to construct exercises I would use a very primitive game engine to teach these things. Depending on the students math level you could focus on the interactions and their logic or the math of physics (in a simple way). This idea is biased to my own experience. The benefit of this approach is that it teaches that computer science on its own is great. If you add an understanding of science and math, it can be even more powerful. I think working with numbers is something programming "snaps to" easily. The weakness of this approach is that anyone who thinks they're weak at math or logical thinking ends up possibly feeling left out. For example: - if Mario touches an enemy, he should loose a life - if Mario has a power up active he should go back to original form - implement Mario's jump - implement Mario's movement - make it inertial - implement gravity - implement momentum - etc..