SCOTTIE GO! – An amazing interactive board game to teach the language of coding to children. Does that even make sense? IT DOES!

in #parenting7 years ago (edited)

Every child has to be a programmer! That’s of course false, and I would like to clarify it at the very beginning. Not every child has to be a programmer, not everyone has to understand the language of coding, and write codes to create new apps. But every child should learn to think logically, and understand cause-effect relations. Both children and adults lack these skills.



Scottie Go! Is a combination of cardboard puzzles pieces and an app for smartphones and tablets. That’s the way the scientists from the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center thought it out, and I have to honestly say, that they thought it out well. The entire learning process is entwined with a game and lots of fun. It really engages children, and they don’t even notice that they are learning. On the story level, the child has to help Scottie the robot, to repair his ship and go back home. On following levels, Scottie has to collect missing parts and avoid obstacles. But he can only do so if we show him a sequence of actions to perform. Here the key element of programming comes into play. Because you see, coding starts with logical thinking and creating an algorithm. Programming language and thousands of lines of code – that comes later. First the algorithm.

By using the puzzle pieces, which there are nearly 200 in the box, one creates a sequence of actions. At first these are simple algorithms, like this:

  1. run
  2. step forward
  3. turn to the left
  4. pick up
  5. end

But with the following stages, functions, loops, and individual sequences appear. For laics this may sound terrifying, but the difficulty level rises reasonably and each level introduces new skills, so we learn in stages.

Scottie Go! Is – in my opinion – a great way to spend time with children. We can solve the puzzles together (at the same time learning ourselves). We face challenges, we can solve some puzzles, and the results are visible because the robot collects succeeding parts for his spaceship. I have played with mi kids and we had a lot of fun. The kids also played by themselves, and had fun. The game is for kids, let’s say 10 years old and more, but with the parents’ support even younger ones can manage. I played with Hania which can’t even read yet. Although, she can think and that’s enough.




The problem with coding is that it has been labeled as a male activity, which is absolutely not true. Unfortunately, many people fix this belief, which I – as a father of a daughter – heavily regret. Scottie Go! May constitute a very nice beginning of an adventure with coding for girls. Actually, look at their film.


Anyway, the kids and I, we strongly recommend it.

Best wishes,
Zuch


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Looks very interesting. I wonder if they offer this in other languages, too?

actually I wrote to guys from this company and they said, that there is versions in English

but also in Spanish and German... but right now they are temporarily out of stock.

But I found some guy on ebay, which still have it: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371793056844?clk_rvr_id=1168897397487&rmvSB=true :)

That is simply AWESOME!!! I need this for our schools in Haida Gwaii, what a powerful tool for us all, even adults as you so appropriately mentioned.

So, "It really engages children, and they don’t even notice that they are earning." Does it mean it introduces the children to Steeming too!?! ;)

Very good article, upvoted and shared. All for one and one for all! Namaste :)

of course it should be "learning" :) Thank you!

Interesting.

Is it only me or this last video.... is in fact very touching? :)

My daughter is too young for that (only 10 months), but I've already spoke about this game with my sister, which has two daughters :)

We already scheduled a game for the next time when we are going to meet together!

PS. Voted and Resteemed! :)

My daughter is six, she plays it every now and then. For now she usually stops at the first stage, but it is quite interesting to see her learn new concepts. About a year ago I had to walk through it with her, now she asks for help only if she has problems.
I have to get the English version, it will be easier to share with friends in the UK.

Really cool .. looks like a puzzle version of Scratch

I can see the progression .. "Scottie Go" .. Scratch .. STEEM Blockchain Scripting .. Udacity .. baddabing .. career at the Google-Musk Orbital Shipyards! :)

or Lego Boost, which I think will also be amazing, but they are not available yet. They are going to be released in a summer :)

This seems like a very important skill to have in this day and age and with where technology is taking us. I will have to get my daughter interested in coding and programming so she doesn't get left behind. ;)

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