Some interesting Game Maker links

We are looking to teach Game Maker again this year. I did some more searching and found:

1. http://gm.destronmedia.com/?page_id=104&did=25 – The Beginers Guide To Game Maker 7.0 Programing

2. http://gm.destronmedia.com/?page_id=104&did=4 – Super Mario example game

3. http://digitalworlds.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/moving-on-with-game-maker-a-maze-game/ – ideas for adding to the example maze game

4. http://www.roencia.com/vidsgamemaker.html – lots of video tutorials for Gamemaker 7, includes code

5. http://www.pageflakes.com/ouseful/22238750 – a great page with lots of ideas for adding features to some common Game Maker examples like the Catch a Clown game, Maze Game and Platform Game

Free Video Analysis and Modeling Tool for Physics Education

http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/

This might be more for physics classes but it is a good example of how you can do physics with a computer! Tracker Video looks like a great tool. Here’s a video on how to use it.

Here’s a paper on how to use it.

Modeling of physical systems with PyLab

PyLab_Works is a free and open source replacement for LabView + MatLab, written in pure Python. PyLab_Works is a visual design package, much easier to learn and to extend than LabView. PyLab_Works also supports a MatLab-like environment for doing scientific and engineering calculations but with a much better general programming environment (thanks to Python + Scipy) than MatLab. Even kids can use it!

It’s available at http://www.ohloh.net/p/pylab-works. Here’s a video about it

http://mientki.ruhosting.nl/movies/vp1.html

The part I like the best is where they use Python to simulate a pendulum. You can play with the parameters of the pendulum in the code. You can even change the way gravity works!

40+ Desert Island Web Development Tools

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/09/29/40-desert-island-web-development-tools/

Lots of free tools that could be used in the course of teaching kids about computers.

teaching kids to code: first lesson

http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/05/teaching-ruby-to-kids-first-lesson/

I blog post about teaching Ruby to 4th and 5th graders. The teacher used the “Shoes” platform.

There’s also an article about teaching Ruby to High School girls:

http://teachingkids.railsbridge.org/2009/08/15/teaching-ruby-to-high-school-girls.html

RoboMind

http://www.robomind.net/en/index.html

This looks a lot like Logo only better.

From the site: “ROBO is a new and very simple educational programming language that will familiarize you with the basics of computer science by programming your own robot. In addition to an introduction into popular programming techniques, you will also gain insight into areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence.”

“RoboMind is meant to be a first introduction to automation and programming without prerequisites. Because many different exercises can be made, the difficulty level can be tailored to the audience. In primary education pupils can get acquainted to writing commands to navigate the robot through its environment, on high school programming structures get more attention and universities focus on the theoretical aspects of automation theory like Turing machines.”

It’s free and available for Windows, Linux and Macs. ( Waring! It requires Java 1.6, which only recently was available on Mac OS X. )

Little Man Computer Model

http://engineers-excel.com/Tools/Little%20Man%20Computer/Description.htm

This tool shows the working of a computer CPU using the Little Man Computer Model (LMC).

The Little Man Computer was created by Dr. Stuart Madnick of MIT as a model for teaching the workings of a CPU. The LMC models the working of a modern CPU, but is still simple enough to be understood and programmed by high school students.

Counting in Binary

https://apps.lis.illinois.edu/wiki/display/CII/Counting+in+Binary

This module uses a combination of discussion and participant involvement to learn about the differences between analog and binary representations of information. Since computers use a binary numbering system, participants learn how to count in binary.

The goal of this activity is to illustrate the basics of working with the binary numbering system.

How do parts of a computer communicate?

https://apps.lis.illinois.edu/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4362095

The goal of this module is to conceptualize how communication happens between the parts of a computer. Placed into the context of the things we use the computer (typing, displaying characters on the monitor, accessing the Internet) we can gain a clearer understanding of how the parts work together to accomplish tasks. Understanding this process is useful when troubleshooting hardware or software problems.

Educational Software

http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software

This page has lots of software that can be used for educational purposes. It includes some programming tools.