I've again been teaching teens, no my usual practice these days, but a fun variation on the theme.
Saturday Academy kids are self selected and tend not to have ego problems around whether they're "smart enough" or whatever it takes. The all believe they have the "right stuff" ultimately. The classroom is probably the best I've had, in terms of being able to project content on the big screen. I have a button to lower the blinds. I used to think Hewlett-Packard would go into the classroom design business as there's more one could do. Once could have a button to project each student's console to the front, for example, perhaps under the teacher's control. That takes software, not just hardware. You'd need to work it out from the ground up. Ideally, the school is build like a theater or holodeck, to accommodate all sorts of classroom configurations. Of course we don't really have such schools today, unless you count Universal Studios. I've uploaded some pix to Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirbyurner/7680435316/in/photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirbyurner/7680433664/in/photostream/ (etc. to the left and right of those) These are middle school aged, so like averaging 14 or so years old. What I do is intersperse mini-talks on Python with hands on play with showings of Youtubes. Yesterday we zoomed in on Mandelbrot sets before lunch, then switched to Mandelbulb fly-throughs after lunch. I have them for two hours, with a lunch break in between of under an hour. The title of the course is 'Martian Math and Programming in Python'. The Martian part is rather subtle in that I just plant some ideas. I bring a large tetrahedron to the room, plus carry it through the halls, turning heads. In other versions of this course I might dwell on a particular storyboard / story problem wherein Earthlings and ETs are working together on a big dam (hydro-electric) but measure concrete in different units (cube vs tetrahedron respectively). Here's some code I'll be taking on memory stick today, reviewing some of what we've been doing. We're using Python 2.7 + VPython on Win7. === """sa1.py""" from visual import * import math def ballmatrix( ): for x in range(-10, 10): for y in range(-10, 10): sphere(radius=.5, pos=(x,y,0)) def hidef( ): for x in range(-100, 100): for y in range(-100, 100): sphere(radius=.5, pos=(x,y,0)) def mandelbrot( ): for r in range(-40, 10): for i in range(-20, 20): c = complex(r/10.0, i/10.0) z = 0 for times in range(10): z = z*z + c if abs(z) < 1: sphere(radius=.5, pos=(r,i,0), color = color.black) else: sphere(radius=.5, pos=(r,i,0), color = color.red) def mandelbrot2( ): for r in range(-40, 10): for i in range(-20, 20): c = complex(r/10.0, i/10.0) z = 0 for times in range(10): z = z*z + c thelength = abs(z) if thelength < 1: sphere(radius=.5, pos=(r,i,0), color = color.black) elif 2 >= thelength >= 1: sphere(radius=.5, pos=(r,i,0), color = color.red) elif 5 >= thelength >= 2: sphere(radius=.5, pos=(r,i,0), color = color.orange) elif 20 >= thelength >= 5: sphere(radius=.5, pos=(r,i,0), color = color.green) else: sphere(radius=.5, pos=(r,i,0), color = color.blue) mandelbrot2() === """ sa2.py """ from visual import * import math """ color = (r, g, b) where r,g,b are between 0 and 1. red green blue """ def colorchange(): g, b = 0, 0 for r in range(0, 100): # increase red from 0 to 1 ball = sphere(radius=10, color=(r/100.0, g, b)) rate(50) ball.visible = False del ball r, b = 1, 0 for g in range(0, 100): # increase green from 0 to 1 ball = sphere(radius=10, color=(r, g/100., b)) rate(50) ball.visible = False del ball g, b = 1, 1 for b in range(0, 100): # increase blue from 0 to 1 ball = sphere(radius=10, color=(r, g, b/100.)) rate(50) ball.visible = False del ball ball = sphere(radius=10, color=(1,1,1)) # white colorchange() === """ sa3.py """ from visual import * import math from random import randint def say_something(): """ Get something from the user to display """ saywhat = raw_input("What shall I print? ") text(text=saywhat, align='center', depth=-0.3, color=color.green) def rand_color(): """ pick three random numbers between 0 and 1, e.g. 0.5 or 0.3 """ r = randint(0,100)/100. g = randint(0,100)/100. b = randint(0,100)/100. return (r,g,b) def say_alphabet(): x = -25 # offset to the left for c in "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWZYZ": # jump through each letter text(text=c, pos=(x,0,0), align='center', depth=-0.3, color=rand_color()) x = x + 1.5 # to the the right a bit say_alphabet() # change this to point to different functions at runtime Kirby _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
