Matthew Miller wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>
>I'm looking for some advice. For the past two summers I've taught an
>electronics/robotics class to high schools students (9th-11th graders) and
>the robots we use are programmed in C. Both times teaching this class I've
>been dissappointed with how well the students grasped the programming aspect
>of the course.
>
>While my teaching may be at fault, I think the larger problem is that C is a
>poor language for beginners. Six weeks is also a short period for such an
>introduction to programming... What I would like to do is use a different
>programming language. Currently, I'm looking very strongly at Logo. The main
>reason that Logo is appealing is because of the basic graphics programming
>that it uses. For example, I could show the kids a program that draws a
>square on the computer screen, and then show that the same program on the
>robot traces out a square as it moves. The "turtle" metaphor could be very
>useful.
>
>So, I'm looking for suggestions and comments. I would like to continue using
>the "Rug Warrior Pro" robots, but I have no information on the interpreter
>software that is used (I guess I could translate another language to C.)
>Building a simple (PIC based of course) robot would be fun though.
>
>Thanks for any insights (especially WRT teaching kids how to program!)
>
>Matthew
>
>  
>
You might be interested in Smalltalk, specifically Squeak.  Smalltalk is 
designed for teaching programming.  See: http://www.squeak.org/

There is a brand-new good book on Squeak and robots: 
http://smallwiki.unibe.ch/botsinc/ "*Squeak: Learn Programming with 
Robots"*.  And here is a package for controlling Lego Mindstorm robots: 
http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~lego/*

*Good luck,
David
*
*

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