CS in Education Week – Wednesday

(image by AbigailGina CC0)

I bought some controllable LED strips about a year ago for a Hackable Classroom project that never really got going. My son and I found them last week and I decided to use one of them to upgrade the lighting in his room, giving him the chance to create his own sequences and effects in code.

The problem: create a lighting system that allows the user to change the colour of the LEDs or cycle pre-programmed sequences.

This seems quite daunting. My son has definitely never created a lighting system before. However we chatted about it and, after a little research, decided that it was really made up of three separate problems:

Sub-problem 1: wire the LED strip to a microcontroller

Sub-problem 2: create a program to somehow set the colour of the LEDs

Sub-problem 3: create a program to display a pre-programmed sequence on the LEDs

By splitting the problem down into smaller steps it now appears much more achievable.

Turns out when you define more specific goals it can be much easier and quicker to solve the overall problem. We built the lighting system in an hour and my son coded the light show online before transferring it onto a Microbit.

This is an example of problem decomposition and how it can be used by computer scientists to overcome issues which may, at first, appear too difficult. Like building a robot that can do a backflip:

This would be a great next project son…

Try this:

Problem: create a computer quiz

Creating a computer-based quiz may seem daunting at first. Break down the problem into smaller sub-problems though and you’ll definitely be able to do it!

Sub-problem 1: create five suitable questions and multiple choice answers

Sub-problem 2: research and select an appropriate quiz creation service (e.g. Kahoot, Quizlet, Socrative) or create your own in Python

Sub-problem 3: find people to test your quiz and let you know if they enjoyed it

CS in Education Week – Tuesday

Sudden drop in temperature + wind direction change + dark rolling clouds in the distance = a greater chance of snow? (image by LoboStudioHamburg CC0)

It has been noticeably colder here in the past few days and this has got me thinking about snow and, more specifically, looking for signs that it is on the way. These signs have been observed and my personal heuristic refined over time. We all do this in one way or another. We try to identify patterns that lead up to or predict another event.

Here is another example: Every day at school you most likely follow the same sequence of classes and breaks that you followed the previous week. And the week before.

Eventually it becomes so repetitive that you might not even have to think about the equipment you need to bring for each class. It becomes so ingrained in your memory that packing your bag or emptying your locker can be done on auto-pilot. Well, most of the time.

Computers can be programmed to identify when the same sequence of events happen and predict either what comes next or what should happen in response.

A computer programmer is essential to train the system to see patterns and predict or react to them appropriately. These systems build up  models of the information they are programmed to analyse which, over time, can increase the accuracy of the predictions.

Some of the more complex pattern recognition systems are used to suggest follow up items you might buy from Amazon, predict the grades you will get in the Senior Phase, suggest a new playlist for you to enjoy on Spotify or tell you if snow is on the way.

Try this

1. Click on the link below to visit weatheronline and see a live update of the Global Forecast System (GFS)

Snow accumulation GFS Model for United Kingdom 

2. Try to complete the FreeCodeCamp challenge and make your own weather forecasting app

Show The Local Weather

CS in Education Week – Monday

Starting the week by asking students to create a tour around some of Stonehaven’s places of interest (image by serenestarts CC0)

The next seven days heralds CS in Education week around the world. I wanted to continue to promote Computer Science within my school by sharing a resource and short video every day with the school community.

Code.org has a lot of great videos to inspire future computer scientists. I selected Computer Science is Changing Everything to show that these are skills which pervade almost every job and allow companies and individuals to improve using data analysis, robotics, predictions or simulations.

To begin the week I decided to focus on some unplugged computer science. Everyone will have at some point in their lives given directions to another person. If written down and repeatedly followed this is essentially an algorithm: a recipe to solve a particular problem.

For the challenge task I was inspired by The Tour Guide activity by Queen Mary University of London. I decided to alter their task to give it some local relevance and fit it to a single page.

The document above can also be accessed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VgdMkBy21pqJdAmfKYOLQUycOxH53jPZu6o4QyV3xfY/edit?usp=sharing

Are you a CS educator? What are you doing in your school / college / university / local area to give others a chance to learn more about the field of computer science? Please share your ideas in the comments section!