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The easiest way to teach kids how to program is via Lego Mindstorms. I don't know a single programmer who didn't play with Lego as a child. The Mindstorms kit

by joshvm 12y ago

The easiest way to teach kids how to program is via Lego Mindstorms. I don't know a single programmer who didn't play with Lego as a child. The Mindstorms kit is expensive, but you can do a lot with it and it also teaches the basics of sensors and robotics. Graphical languages are great ways to introduce programming without the rather inane things you need to learn like syntax. In hindsight Mindstorms was my first exposure to programming and I didn't even notice. I just enjoyed solving the problems in the book and making the little robot do what I wanted.

thsealienbstrds 12y ago
Pretty neat that they have this now. When I was young I didn't have Mindstorms but there was the Lego that allowed you to create running electrical parts. Yeah... I sure played a lot with Lego. Now I play a lot with Haskell. Look mom, no state! Except the problem is I can't show this to my mother, she does not understand it. :(
patio11 12y ago
I wrote my first program before seeing my first Lego block, a toy which I never got in to. I realize this might sound unlikely, but it was cheaper to program than to buy Legos, in a manner which made a difference for my family at the time.
- joshvm 12y ago
  Lego is exorbitantly expensive, though it is virtually indestructible. I was given Mindstorms for Christmas one year, but I was only able to play with it at my grandparents' house where the computer was good enough (i.e. had more than 16MB RAM).
zarify 12y ago
After using Mindstorms a bit at my school I'm not too sure about their value as introductions to programming. The kids I have coming through seem to have done better things after being introduced via something like Scratch (or Gamemaker) where there isn't a break between what they code and how they get it to work. ie for Mindstorms you need to physically build something that is capable of doing the job that your program requires. A surprising number of students either didn't have the interest in that aspect or were unable to build what they had in mind. (Also the Mindstorms software is awful.)

by joshvm 12y ago

thsealienbstrds 12y ago

Pretty neat that they have this now. When I was young I didn't have Mindstorms but there was the Lego that allowed you to create running electrical parts. Yeah... I sure played a lot with Lego. Now I play a lot with Haskell. Look mom, no state! Except the problem is I can't show this to my mother, she does not understand it. :(

patio11 12y ago

I wrote my first program before seeing my first Lego block, a toy which I never got in to. I realize this might sound unlikely, but it was cheaper to program than to buy Legos, in a manner which made a difference for my family at the time.

joshvm 12y ago
Lego is exorbitantly expensive, though it is virtually indestructible. I was given Mindstorms for Christmas one year, but I was only able to play with it at my grandparents' house where the computer was good enough (i.e. had more than 16MB RAM).

zarify 12y ago

After using Mindstorms a bit at my school I'm not too sure about their value as introductions to programming. The kids I have coming through seem to have done better things after being introduced via something like Scratch (or Gamemaker) where there isn't a break between what they code and how they get it to work. ie for Mindstorms you need to physically build something that is capable of doing the job that your program requires. A surprising number of students either didn't have the interest in that aspect or were unable to build what they had in mind. (Also the Mindstorms software is awful.)