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Visual Programming Via The Squeak Car Demo. Dan Grossman University of Washington CS4HS August 6-8, 2009. This 120 minutes. 20 minutes: introduction “cooking-show demo” 50 minutes: paired up in the lab “trying it out” 50 minutes: recap concepts a demo I made in 10 minutes - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Visual Programming Via The Squeak Car Demo
Dan GrossmanUniversity of Washington
CS4HSAugust 6-8, 2009
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This 120 minutes
• 20 minutes: – introduction – “cooking-show demo”
• 50 minutes: paired up in the lab “trying it out”
• 50 minutes: – recap concepts– a demo I made in 10 minutes– brainstorm
3
“Visual programming”
• “Virtual worlds” for scripting, simulation, animation, building control systems, etc.– “Discovering” core math, science, and computer
science with some “computer game” feel
• Popular ones with amazing stuff: – Squeak Etoys, Scratch, Alice
• Today: A demo for 11-year-olds– The point is the idea & approach– Not the specific content
• (make up own or search web later)
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Why?
• Virtual scriptable worlds compared to real-world– Easier to control– Faster– Cheaper– As a result: More fun
• Computational concepts without a CS class– Scripting– Modeling– Simulation– Feedback and control loops– Conditionals– (plus tons of useful math, probability, statistics, …)
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Why me?
• Computer science faculty since 2003– Programming languages
(ways to think about computation)– Believe “computational thinking” is essential for all
college-prep high-school students• Not the same as programming class• I never programmed until college
– But I’m not a high-school teacher• Show you Squeak; hope you think it’s useful
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Cooking-show
• 4x-speed version of what you’ll do in the lab– Feel free to play around also, but try to get through
most of this– Step-by-step instructions in lab, so just “get a
sense” here
• By the way, I’m new to Squeak – you pick it up fast
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Outline
1. Paint a car; keep it
2. Use mouse and object viewer to move car
3. Skip saving/loading projects
4. Script circles/polygons (pen down)
5. Steering wheel connected to car
6. “Robot” car that follows the road
7. Car with random speed
8. (Time permitting, car that accelerates at each step)
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Let’s go try it ourselves!!!
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This 120 minutes
• 20 minutes: – introduction – “cooking-show demo”
• 50 minutes: paired up in the lab “trying it out”
• 50 minutes: – recap concepts– a demo I made in 10 minutes– brainstorm
10
Outline
1. Paint a car; keep it
2. Use mouse and object viewer to move car
3. Skip saving/loading projects
4. Script circles/polygons (pen down)
5. Steering wheel connected to car
6. “Robot” car that follows the road
7. Car with random speed
8. (Time permitting, car that accelerates, at each step)
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A ton of CS in there
• Using mouse and object viewer to move car– State of a model– Multiple representations for viewing and controlling
the model
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A ton of CS in there
• Script circles/polygons– Expressing repetitive tasks via an algorithm– Automating repetitive tasks– Approximations, derivatives, limits
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A ton of CS in there
• Steering wheel– “Wires” for connecting outputs to inputs– Perspective and relative positions
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A ton of CS in there
• Smart car– Feedback and control systems– Conditionals
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A ton of CS in there
• Random speed– Simulation of a random process for collecting
statistics• A key alternative to mathematical analysis• So much faster than rolling real-world dice• Let me show you my “roulette car”…
– In theory, analysis is more convincing– In practice, many people learn visually
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Why?
• Virtual scriptable worlds compared to real-world– Easier to control– Faster– Cheaper– More fun
• Computational concepts without a CS class– Scripting– Modeling– Simulation– Feedback– Conditionals– (plus tons of useful math, probability, statistics, …)
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Much, much more available
• Plenty of online information, forums, etc.
• Squeak Etoys school projects: – http://squeakland.org (not squeak.org)– Slightly newer version than we had in the lab– Try Showcase, then Showcase by Age
• Actually, instead try out:– Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/– Alice: http://www.alice.org/– (what? and start over after 2 hours?? )
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So…
What in your courses could use something like this?
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