Ideas for programming workshops

These are ideas for 45 minute workshops. Not suggesting them all, but maybe pick one or two for different age groups.

The basics

To give everyone a chance to write a working program, whatever their skill, start with Hello world

• helloworld.py

and then extend that into looping forever

• helloworld_forever.py

Extended basics

Once everyone has tried that out, briefly introduce

• variables
• math operations
• lists
• functions
  • built in, like asking for a number from the user
  • user defined

Maths

Factorials

Ask for a number n, calculate n * (n - 1) * (n - 2) * ... * 1

• factorial.py

Fibonacci

The sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, .... so the sum of the previous two Fibonacci numbers.

• fibonacci.py

You can see the computer start to slow quite quickly as the numbers grow bigger.

Sieve of Eratosthenes

Finding prime numbers

• sieve_of_eratosthenes.py

Secret ciphers

Read in a message, encrypt it and share the secret

• secretmessage.py

Graphics

Use PyGame to draw shapes on screen

pip install pygame

Would suggest giving these as starters-for-ten and the ask is to modify them.

Draw a landscape

• pygame_landscape.py

Draw a face

• pygame_face.py

Draw shapes

• pygame_shapes.py