When do we get to play?

prof_braino

During preparation for the robotics class at the Montessori school, folks (even non-Montessori folks) advised me to give the kids some thing to play with, and let the kids play as quickly as possible. And they had a blast, regardless of how difficult the material was.

All we had to do was skip or pre-do the "boring stuff" (sorting out access permissions, user priveledges, installing drivers, organizing the materials). Just let them dive in directly to blinking LEDs, funny messages on the screen, and chain these into little programs.

This got me thinking: For geezers like us, the "boring stuff" IS the play, and we get to start playing with the set up ritual. Most of us know how to do the set up, installation, priveledges, and love showing off how slick were are getting these tasks completed. And ususally we show off to folks that could care less that we installed the proper driver for the FTDI in one mouse click or less, but WE know we did good, and thats a good enough for us.

"Regular" folk don't know the rules of the game of setting up the OS etc, and so get frustrated and don't have so much fun. But those of us that got help at the right time or otherwise figured it out , this becomes part of our play area.

My new idea in documentation is "When do we get to play?", or how do we get the audience to the "play" stage more directly.

Super Mario World is difficult and frustrating, but every kid will keep at it until they can defeat the next boss. Perhaps embedded systems design and implementation can be the same game (a large problem set learning adventure), with different graphics.

Thoughts?

potatohead

SGI spent some time comparing video game accessibility to various tasks. Their GUI mantra for IRIX 6.3 & 5, was "Think N64", and it was notable, but really didn't get at what you are writing about.

I think the difference is this:

There are people who enjoy computing and electronics for what they are, and there are people who see them as enabling only for something they enjoy for what it is. The former group will "play" with the computer or the circuits, where the latter group sees them as overhead for the other goal.

Here's an interesting observation. So, my PC machines borked out on me. I've got the XP machine running again, soon to be joined by the Win 7 machine. So, I got out the Mac and have used it for some activities. Man, I love Mac OS because it's a great UNIX, but it's also just a great computer too. One can ignore all that lower level stuff and have a fine time of it, which explains why many of that latter group really like Mac computers.

Needed to grab something on a torrent. Fetched it, a coupla clicks later, I was up and running. Needed to load programming tools, same thing. The "setup" that gets me to "play" is very lean, and one almost doesn't think about it where on a Windows PC, or Linux, we are there sometimes, but often there is work to do --meta work that pushes the "play" whatever it is farther forward, which can be discouraging. In my case, it was just fun, because I got there quickly.

Then it came to building PropGCC. I like doing stuff like that, and had a good time figuring out all the little wrinkles. Then I got back to the Propeller, which is how this all started.

Some of the parts I need are Windows, some are Mac / UNIX, and so it's kind of a mess. Suddenly, I've got far more work to perform a simple task than I did before with the PC, and I've noted my frustration level go up as iterations, tests, new things just take longer hopping back and forth between Mac OS and the Windows VM running under Fusion.

I think that's how the latter group feels when they decide to incorporate this stuff into whatever their "play" is. I keep coming back to the word "lean", but I think it's the right word. Where we can make this stuff lean, we benefit everybody, where it's not so lean, those of us who enjoy computing and circuits still have a great time, but the others drop off quick because their reward isn't linked to the meta-tasks necessary for the primary task, whatever it is.

End result?

I want my PCs back. I love the Mac, and if it all were lean, I would stay on the Mac because that environment overall is superior, but it's not lean, which breaks the whole thing. Using a PC can be kind of clunky, but in Propeller land, doing that is the leanest thing there is, which gets me to using a Propeller, not prepping to use a Propeller.

By analogy then, somebody using their Arduino might exceed it's scope of capability. So they switch off, find a Prop, or some other thing, and start getting setup.

There is the setup itself, which in all cases takes some doing. The leaner the better, but many will just do it at least once because doing it is worth it for the longer haul.

There is the applying that setup, and again the leaner the better, and the latter group really won't endure too much that isn't lean, favoring those workflows and tools that keep them near their primary task.

So they do the work, maybe get something done, but they might be wanting "their Arduino" back, just because it's more lean and it keeps them close to their primary task, whatever that is to the point of redefining that task, or accepting less than optimal implementation / results, because that is where the fun is, not the enabling things behind the fun.

kwinn

Hook the kids on playing with the robotics stuff first. That will make them put up with the "boring stuff" to get to that point,. Later when they will hopefully find the "boring stuff" more interesting.