Learning to Program

As of today this is just a list of ressources.

Things My Kids Liked

… at about 6 - 8 years

• Scratch - Create and share stories, games and animations.
  • FizzBuzz TDD on Scratch - for software developing parents: How to TDD a kata.
• Lego Mindstorms - How to program Lego Mindstorms in Scratch, Java and Python.

… at about 8 - 14 years

• Minecraft Mods - Links regarding Minecraft programming.
• Roblox Developer - Roblox Developer Portal.
  • Learn Roblox Studio - Onboarding - Getting started as a Roblox game developer.
• Microsoft Unity and C# - Game development

… at about 14+ years

• Godot Engine and Python - Game development
• CircuitPython on an ESP32 micro controller - Hardware hacking, USB keyboard and mouse emulation, WLAN penetration testing (see also: adafruit / learn)
• C++ on an Arduino Uno micro controller - Assembling and programming hardware (see also: adafruit / learn)

Workshops My Kids Took (In German)

• Forscherfreunde - Feriencamps, Online-Workshops und Ferienreisen.
  • Forscherfreunde: Daddeln und Denken mit Minecraft - Feriencamp rund um Minecraft: Logik-Schaltungen, Command Block Programmierung u.a.
• Lukas Schneider (MrLuchs): Deine eigenen Games erstellen - MrLuchs zeigt Spiele-Programmierung mit C# und Unity.
  • MrLuchs Youtube Channel - MrLuchs spielt Eure Spiele und veröffentlich Tipps und Tricks.
  • MrLuchs Spieleentwickler Challenge - Challenge für Kinder mit Preisgeld.
• Hardware Hacking Area at 37th Chaos Communication Congress - Getting started with electronics, soldering electronic circuits, assembling and programming micro controllers, performing penetration testing with micro controller based devices

Challenges for Kids

• World Robot Olympiad Association - a truly global robotics competition dedicated to science, technology and education.
  • World Robot Olympiad (in German) - Deutsche Einstiegsseite.

Other Ideas and Resources My Kids Have Not Tried (Yet)

In German

• Let’s Code Minecraft - Webinar: Programmieren Lernen mit Minecraft (Redstone, ComputerCraft and Lua).
• Programmieren mit der Maus - Mit der Maus Programmieren lernen.
• Dein Programm - Lerne die absoluten Grundlagen des Programmierens mit einer funktionalen Programmiersprache.
• Pixelflood
  • Pixel-Competition at rc3
  • Wiki of mag.lab related to Pixel-Competition
  • Pixelflut Seite des CCC Göttingen (in German)
• Wikipedia: Niki - der Roboter (Wikipedia) - Einfache Roboter-Programmierung.

Multiple Languages

• code.org - Nonprofit organisation giving access to computer science to young students from 4 to 18+ years (supported by Microsoft, Google, Amazon and many others)

• Little Hackers: Learning to Code for Early Readers - Kickstarter project for kids aged 6 and above.

• WebTigerJython Turtle Grafik - Turtle graphics in python in the browser.

• What is MakeCode - introduction and documentation of MakeCode for Circuit Playground Express

• Microsoft MakeCode - Online learning platform for programmers, game devs, device programmers and minecraft mods

• adafruit & Microsoft MakeCode - beginners projects and tutorials for Circuit Playground Express