[OT] Need inspiration!

[Impeesa]

So I have a good chance of getting a summer job as an instructor at the local 'youth university' (science camp, basically)... My interview is Monday, and I'm supposed to bring a program proposal - basically, an overview of something fun and with some solid theory to it that I could teach to 13-17 year olds in 2 weeks. My area is computer science..... they said that in the past they've done simple stuff like web pages, Java animations, intro to C++. I'd like to bring something more interesting than that, but I'm drawing a blank.

So, I think to myself, where can I find a bunch of computer-literate creative types who might be able to inspire me? Then I thought, hey, maybe the guys at ENWorld know where I can find some.

No, really. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

--Impeesa--

 

[Larry Fitz]

How long would it take to teach them the basics of creating a graphic game?

 

[Darkness]

Moved to Software.

 

[DMFTodd]

Interesting Stuff

Your little charges should working on completely a OGL XML standard for the d20 system. Start small with a skill or spell XML standard and then move to the Creature standard. That should be fun (well maybe not, but at least it would be useful).

Or, you can give them my program, DM's Familiar, and have them construct an ODBC driver to read my data, parse it into XML, and then provide XSL sheets to print it all out. Again, not much fun, better terribly useful to me.

 

[schporto]

Blackjack or poker. There are actually some fun bits in there to get lost in. It sounds like they'd be real easy to program but there are definately some pitfalls.

Wumpus. Have them write a wumpus game. (or grue or jaberwocky or however you learned it) Then have them write an AI wumpus hunter to automagically play the game.

Or isn't there a computer science high school competition? You could have them try that. Those would teach a bunch of skills.

-cpd

 

[Destil]

The most fun I had programing at that age was competing with some friends building basic wire-frame 3-D renderers in C++. Though I had years of programming behind me at that point...

I like the classics. Asteroids is a long time favorite and feasible in 2 weeks if you provide them with an engine that can handle some of the basics (collision detection, visual output of some basic polygons and translational movement in two-space). They get to figure out the physics of acceleration and position, time keeping and such. It's would also be a nice way to introduce some basic object oriented concepts, since they could see how a working class structure comes together.