Sci Fi Your Pi a design Challenge from Element14

After my success in the Raspberry Pi Educators Roadtest winning the prize for the UK (an Up mini 3D printer) I thought I would put in a proposal for their latest design challenge.

The title of the design challenge is "Sci Fi Your Pi" and centres around the idea of creating objects from or inspired by Science Fiction. This video explains what it is all about

I struggled initially to think of anything interesting being stuck on the suggestions made in the introduction to the challenge. However it was my search for difference that gave me the idea of looking at creating a Steampunk inspired device.

The kit for the challenge comes with a GPS model so this along with the strong adventurer spirit in Steampunk fiction I ended up with the idea of a Navigation device.

My idea has been selected from a large number of applicants among a very interesting group of projects. So far I have outlined my initial inspiration and described what I am hoping to produce for the challenge.  I have received the kit and I am putting together a plan of how I am going to make it work.

For anyone not familiar with Steampunk this video gives a fairly good introduction through a number of film clips. 

The spirit of adventure and exploration (as exemplified by the work of HG Wells and Joules Verne) felt like a great basis for a project where I will be trying new things and creating something a bit different to some of my other projects.

You can follow my progress on the Element 14 community with the tag steampunk_navigation. 

The Sound of Music - Sonic Pi with The Home Ed Computing Group

With the last session I had discovered the difficulty of the volume of text required when using python and the CamJam Edukits for some of the younger children. I have been working on a python library to help with this but this week i decided to use a different tool to look at coding concepts.

Sonic Pi is a great tool because it allows you to teach coding and make music at the same time. It was also a good way of being able to progress in complexity with computing concepts (introducing iteration) but keeping the level of text entry required to a minimum.

Sonic Pi is freely available software as part of the standard Raspian build and is also available for other platforms (more information here on the Sonic Pi Website)

The simple nature of the commands required for the children to be able to make music means it is a really good tool for younger (or children less able to read / type).

Some of the barriers I had found in the Python session had been easily overcome by the simple nature of the commands. I think would have struggled with getting some of the children to start looping blocks of code in Python yet they were all happily making repeating tunes with Sonic Pi. I really wanted to avoid simplifying things too much and this has provided a great bridge between the simple block programming that some of the children have done before and text based languages.

Sonic Pi itself is based on Ruby so it teaching a specific code structure and language that will continue to be useful. O so it is simplified in that the tasks it is performing are much more complex than the Play and sleep combinations, but it is a really engaging and relevant way to work with code.

I have written lots before about Sonic Pi so i will try and avoid this becoming the Sonic Pi fan page. However in reducing the volume of typing required I have found another way in which Sonic Pi makes coding accessible to a wider audience.

The group seemed to really enjoy this session and it was one of the most requested areas to do more with.

I am starting to look to move away from just leading the sessions and i already have several children with ideas for their own projects. This is an idea I am really keen to explore as i feel the best way to learn about computing is by finding challenges and solving them using computing. If children can find something that interests them they are much more motivated to explore than if they are being directed by someone else.