I have been introduced today to a few new programming systems such as Arduino, Scratch, logicator, and Lego NXT and started to have a play around with them.
- Scratch- a program designed for primary school students,I was very quickly able to create programs to make my little characters come to life.I think that's because it had a similar feel to Flowol and Picaxe so was able to transfer over a few skills to get going. I later plugged in a Lego crocodile and managed to create a program to controls its programs jaws to snap close when a hand got within a certain distance. (Although I stupidly didn't evidence this as I forgot my camera!!!...DOH!). The crocodiles were a bit limiting so i went onto programming the robots as there was more to do with them. I managed to program one to follow a line and do various sequences of movements. I think its a good way of introducing programming to students, when i was first introduced to programming it seemed a bit 'Heavy' and i felt a bit too 'stupid' to ever understand ut. but things like scratch, Lego NXT is a good way into programming which is fun and easily achievable. you can also make it as hard or easy as you want.