Introduction to Programming Concepts

In this program, students learn basic programming concepts such as loops, while loops, conditionals (if/else), procedures, parameters, etc. Students learn these concepts through the following modules:

  1. The Experiential Robotics Platform (XRP)
  2. Alice 3D
  3. MIT Appinventor

XRP

XRP is a hands-on, comprehensive robotics platform and includes everything needed to build and program a robot to perform beginning through advanced tasks – building the foundation for innovative thinking, science, engineering, and problem solving. (sparkfun.com) 

The following is a photo of an XRP. 

The following video shows an XRP in action, crossing a bridge while carrying a couple of people. The XRP shows some of its moves on the bridge and then turning around at the end of the bridge to go back to the starting point of the travel.

The following video shows the XRP drawing a square. It also shows the code that was written by Everett (a 3rd grader) to draw a square. 

The following video shows the XRP in action, drawing an octagon. It also shows the code that was written by Everett (a 3rd grader) to draw an octagon. 

ALICE 3D

Alice is an innovative block-based programming environment that makes it easy to create animations, build interactive narratives, or program simple games in 3D (https://www.alice.org/).

The following video shows a simple animation of what students will be able to create using Alice 3D.

The following video shows an example of what students will be able to create using Alice 3D.

MIT Appinventor

MIT App Inventor is an intuitive, visual programming environment that allows everyone – even children – to build fully functional apps for Android phones, iPhones, and Android/iOS tablets.  For more information, please visit (https://appinventor.mit.edu/).

The following shows a video of  simple App developed for an Android phone using MIT Appinventor. It also shows the code that was used to develop the App.

This page is still under development.

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