What Interests High-School Students?

Jim Willis asks: "Our IT Division happens to be populated with some civic-minded people who are interested in making time available for local high-school students interested in science and technology. Question is, we're not sure the best way to do it. We're mulling around the idea of sponsoring a robotics competition or some sort of programming fair/competition. Unfortunately, we've been out of high-school long enough to not know what excites students about technology. Slashdot readers (esp. those of you in high-school): Where should we focus our attention and donate/volunteer our time?"

Comments

I am a high school student

[koreaman]

I am a high school student, so I beliewe I am qualified to answer you.

First, be forwarned. I don't mean to sond cynical, but there is not a whole lot that has to do with science and technology that would excite most students. Even if it does, a lot of people are too scared of being called a "nerd" or a "geek" and thereby having their social status for the rest of the four years ruined to show that excitement.

There are, however, some. I don't think that a robotics competition is a good idea, however. I don't know about most schools, but at mine there are not a lot of people interested in robotics. Besides, it would take a lot of work, and a lot of the most brilliant people are inherently lazy.

I think the programming fair was a great idea, however. Every time I write a program to do the simplest thing on my TI-84+ graphing calculator (such as convert celsius to fahrenheit for instance) people gape at me with awe and amazement and ask, how did you DO that? This includes jocks, socialites, and various other groups of people who would normally not be caught dead showing an interest in the "nerdy" fields of computers or technology.

If you put on a programming fair, you are not going to be able to teach anyone computer programming in a day, but you will spark their interest. Give away a few CDs with C tutorials on them or something, and maybe, just maybe, a few kids will try them out.

Also, expect the bit-head population to turn out in force at your fair. You can even put some of them to good use, having them help the newbies who have no idea what's going on.

In conclusion, programming fair=good, robotics competition=bad.

Re:video games

[frenetic3]

I've usually found technically minded kids from 7th grade through high school get a kick out of making computer games, even very crude, simple ones. I had a class in high school where we'd write simple programs and build things with Legos and motors, etc which turned out to be fun even for people that usually wouldn't be into it.

On the programming end, PyGame, an API for writing games in Python based on SDL should provide the gentlest introduction while still having kids do real "programming". And it's all free as long as kids have access to a computer lab. DirectX/C++ is usually too much for newbies to handle, but beginners can usually do some basic work in Python.

An element of competition may help increase interest -- I know this is way beyond anything you'd be planning and the scope of what high school kids could handle but here we have a game/AI programming contest (6.370) which provides a base platform/game engine so people without much game programming experience to still make something useful.

Lego Mindstorms probably also work in giving kids something "technical" to play with, but might be expensive for a volunteer project (unless you can get funding or have the kids buy the sets.)

I'd say start small -- many kids are elated to even get draw a ball bouncing across the screen, and it may spur their enthusiasm to learn on their own from there. Just tell them they can learn to make computer games.

-fren