What is the educational angle of the Propeller?

ElectricAye

Okay, so the grant-writer-uppers want suggestions on how our project might "integrate research and education by advancing discovery and understanding while at the same time promoting teaching, training, and learning...". So I figured my 2 cents worth would go something like this: we chose the Propeller as the controller because Parallax has an excellent reputation for promoting education, providing the manual for free, etc. which, one might argue, makes the technology accessible to college students, etc. But would I be stretching things if I said that the Prop would be accessible to high school students, you think??? At least in theory, we could make a little demo project for high schoolers to play with, but I'm not sure I'd look like a used car salesman if I touted the Prop as being generally accessible to all levels of students.

Also, I found this link from Parallax that shows wonderful things about the Stamp, but might there be others that show how wonderful the Prop is for teaching, robot clubs that use it, etc.???

www.parallax.com/Education/EducationHome/tabid/463/Default.aspx

thanks, y'all

Mark

Mike Green

With Hanno's 12-Blocks graphical programming system, the Propeller is readily accessible to elementary school students.

Ken Gracey has noted that Parallax is developing the successor to the Scribbler and it will be Propeller-based. I'm sure you'll see that on the market within a year. The Scribbler is definitely marketed to middle school and elementary school students.

Note that the StingRay is Propeller-based and is a mid-range robot in terms of size and capability.

The BoeBot is currently marketed for high school students and, although it comes with a Stamp-based controller, it's simple to use a Propeller instead. There's even a specific Propeller BoeBotBasic for controlling a BoeBot with PING and PING bracket (and the normal BoeBot IR distance sensors).

heater

"stretching things if I said that the Prop would be accessible to high school students, you think???"

Stretching perhaps, but why not? Isn't that what school is for?

What age range does high school cover in the states?

What I'm comparing to is this:
I was assembling electronic gizmos, (radio, intercom, light detector, musical keyboard etc) from a Philips Electronic kit when I was age 11.
Built a two tube amateur radio receiver at 13.
Built the Wireless World desk calculator when I was 16. Built a TTL and Nixie tube clock with home drawn and etched PCB that same year.

Now you should have seem my sons eyes light up when I introduced him, in a small way, to the Python language when he was 13. If only that Python experience could have been linked to something external and real, a robot say, that would have been the icing on the cake.

Sadly I did not know about the Propeller at the time.

Mind you, none of my youthful experience had anything to do with school back in old Blighty at the time. I just happened to be around people who did that sort of thing.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
For me, the past is not over yet.

Hanno

Thanks Mike for mentioning 12Blocks...

If you haven't tried it, at least take a look at this document which walks through a number of sample programs. It greatly simplifies programming the Propeller while adding significant new features like event handlers, state machines, and changing parameters while the program runs.

Neoteric used it to win the recent Halloween competition. It's starting to be used in several schools and robot clubs. My 5 year old has mastered it and I came up with a way to get my 3 1/2 year old interested in it. A professional engineer uses it because it makes him more productive.

v1.09 with support for state machines, a tabbed interface, user interface blocks and many fixes is here.

Here's what an advanced 12block program looks like- the library contains about a 100 blocks covering everything from sensors to motion control to loops/conditionals so you don't have to remember any commands or figure out objects. You just need to arrange blocks together.



Hanno

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Co-author of the official Propeller Guide- available at Amazon
Developer of ViewPort, the premier visual debugger for the Propeller (read the review here, thread here),
12Blocks, the block-based programming environment (thread here)
and PropScope, the multi-function USB oscilloscope/function generator/logic analyzer

SRLM

I built my BS2e based robot my last semester of high school: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=741023

I learned everything that I needed to know from the various Stamps in class series. I don't think it would have been a big step to have done the Propeller instead if there had been some good documentation (like the PE kit labs).

Pavel

But would I be stretching things if I said that the Prop would be accessible to high school students, you think???

I use Propeller with high school students and I do not see it as a stretch. They generally learn Spin on their own from tutorials but need one-on-one training when they start writing and debugging bit-banging drivers. Given an object with a well defined interface, they can usually use it in an application without further assistance.

ElectricAye

Thanks, y'all

I think I'm convinced: I won't look like a used car salesman after all.

much obliged,
Mark

BradC

Wow, back when I was at school we were learning Logo in year 4, Basic by year 6 and Pascal by year 9. Don't underestimate the ability of a child to learn. I honestly believe most of the issues lie with the teacher. You can't tell me a kid learning algebra at age 12 won't be able to pick up a real programming language if properly taught.

The most important factor is to make sure the kids have the tools to use at home. I was lucky enough to have a Chinese Apple ][noparse][[/noparse]+ knock off at home from year 4, and the ability to do my crash and burning at home rather than limited by class time put me well ahead of the pack. (That and my Osbourne Publishing kiddies guide to 6502 machine language)

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.

potatohead

Prop is totally accessible to high school students. No question.

In my 4 years of HS, we started out with BASIC and LOGO. A few of us split off and did CP/M assembly, games, sound, I/O projects. By senior year I was teaching LOGO and PASCAL on Apple, for some class credits. For anyone who ever questioned LOGO, know that we got 80's high school girls into programming with that language. They loved it, and that's a powerful statement given the time.

The way I see it, there are a lot of similarities between that time and now, if we are talking about the Propeller on a breadboard, and connected to some nice PC.

Like BradC, I had a home machine and put it to good use.

The beauty of Propellers is a home setup is just not all that tough. Most people will have a machine that can be used to program the propeller, and take home kits are not so expensive that kids won't be able to get them and use them.

What I think is most impressive is how breadboard friendly the Prop is. Not much is needed to get cool things to happen.

For High Schoolers, the video and sound capabilities are a very nice plus. Heck, it's a plus for us adults, who want to have some fun. Those areas are great starting points for learning stuff.

Looking back, an Apple ][noparse][[/noparse] with a disk, Applesoft BASIC, Integer Basic, and the mini-assembler for 6502, along with the very nice Apple ][noparse][[/noparse] ROM documentation, and system documentation made for a package where it was not too tough to do stuff. What was there is open enough to be self-teaching for those motivated to just get after it.

Today, a Propeller, the documentation, many SPIN objects, and the ease with which a Prop can be setup to do things, is remarkably similar.

The learning burdens are similar, in that kids have to grok binary math, logic, program flow, basic circuits, etc.... If you subtract the circuits, all of the other stuff is about the same, but for bit sizes. Multi-processing -vs- loops and timing / interrupts on the old Atari and Apple machines is a bit different, but mostly better for starters. The lego style utility of SPIN is actually way better and something kids can make use of quickly, with very low overhead.

Kids did it then, often with a lot of success. I don't think the basics have changed enough to prevent them from doing it today, and a whole lot more about computing is common knowledge now, where it simply was not then.

My math teacher, when asked about binary and hex, replied "nobody uses that stuff". So, we ended up doing our math on the blackboard, masking, and, or, not, fixed point, hex, etc... using the ROM listings to check our work. LOL!!! The geometry teacher was into it though, so a few books and programs later, we were reading and writing hex and binary with few issues.

One big difference is having to use the library, or buy a book, vs having the Internet. That's absolutely huge, and look at microcontrolled here just building away! (makes me wish I was under 18 big)

If this were my grant, I would absolutely incorporate this with a community, like this one, where Q&A can occur. It's just like the "experts" were then, but accessible world wide, and at all times. Total win there, no matter who you are. Would be good to have a study area, where some adults are assigned to participate, and the kids can get exposed to a culture like the one here, and learn stuff, share code, brag, etc...

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
Chat in real time with other Propellerheads on IRC #propeller @ freenode.net
Safety Tip: Life is as good as YOU think it is!