Slashdot Mirror
Doctor Who To Teach Kids To Code
DCFC writes: The BBC is releasing a game to help 8- to 11-year-old kids get into coding. Based on Doctor Who, it alternates between a standard platform game and programming puzzles that introduce the ideas of sequence, loops, if..then, variables and a touch of event-driven programming. Kids will get to program a Dalek to make him more powerful. (Apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines is a good idea!)
Apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines is a good idea!
Doesn't everybody?
That is all.
"Look, my Dalek is now so powerful it writes my code for me!"
Wait, how do you know a Dalek is a "him"?
Table-ized A.I.
Whatever happened to the peaceful, gluttonous number munchers?
Hopefully that will be in time. Here we have to teach 3rd year science students who struggle with for loops and who cannot come to grasp with allocatable arrays. It is despairing.
that introduce the ideas of sequence, loops, if..then, variables
The "if...then" is more professionally called "branching".
Nick of back to Durka-durkkistahn/1930s Germany or wherever you came from, jerkwad. People like you give primates a bad name.
I'm curious, in UK, do you Tea Partiers actually drink tea?
Table-ized A.I.
it's the most elegant language ever created! Everyone's using it!
Daleks aren't racist, they want to kill EVERYONE!
Tea is soon going to be banned in the UK because it violates Sharia law and offends Muslims. Drinking tea in front of a Muslim is now considered a hate crime. You leftists thought that blasphemy laws weren't a slippery slope!
How very 'politically correct' of you, to claim Daleks are 'racist'!
Yes, every 'baddie' in a TV programme is also a 'racist', apparently.
By 'racist', I take it you mean "Simply wants to live around his own race, and decide for himself who he lives around"?
So, apparently you believe that non-whites BENEFIT from living around white people, and that it would be just AWFUL to send them back to live with their own races. Why is that? Do you believe white people are superior to non-whites or something? You must be a 'white supremacist'...
You fucking idiot. You don't even know WHY you believe what you believe...
A lifetime of Jewish brainwashing, through the media, and you're terrified of thinking - as are most of the Slashdot crowd...
Actually, the Daleks really are quite racist. From the linked page:
As a person of Jewish extraction, I'd like to thank you personally for all the wonderful perquisites me and my kind manipulate you to give us. I'm especially appreciative of the endless supply of gentile babies for our blood drinking ceremonies. You guys rock! -- Your friend at the International Jewish Conspiracy
Apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines is a good idea!
The US government have been doing that around the world for decades, so surely it must be a good idea.
Why teach kids to be unemployed? Why delude them, giving them illusions about coding being the key to a successful future? We're not in the '80s anymore. Back then, everybody thought computers were the key to a great career or, rather, that was the trend. By the early '90s with the Web exploding, everybody was pretty certain of that. And what now? IT workers are low-wage blue-collar workers with no vacations, no off hours, no overtime compensation and their jobs are being or have already been outsourced. Computers are for chumps. The money is in Management.
At the moment it appears that this is only accessible in the UK. Are there any plans for it to be released elsewhere (without having to circumvent location blocking)?
they aren't trying to teach kids screenwriting.
> The "if...then" is more professionally called "branching".
Well.. if you want to get technical about it, loops and if..then are both called "branching".
Why not say in the summary which doctor?
The above is an answer to a question along the lines of "what do people outside of the USA think about the Tea Partiers".
:)
It's an opinion derived from what has been filtered through the international media and should not be considered as reality.
It's how the group is presented to people who are too far away to distinguish the reality through the noise.
Either way it's not important since I don't know any more about them than what the media has decided is amusing enough to pass on and the topic should be getting kids interested in stuff via tie-ins. I'm all for it. Maths, politics whatever (since the original Dalek stuff was blatantly about fascism), if it gets the kids learning via activity that can stick more than other ways.
Maybe Dr Who could be used to show me WTF is really going on in US politics
Wow, you could be a Dalek, you racist douchebag.
Commonwealth citizenship apparently grants no privileges.
The 5th Doctor story Castrovalva was based on "recursive occlusion" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... and taught me the basics to loops and recursion.
The BBC most certainly did teach kids screen writing with Doctor Who!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Have you seen the shit they keep coming up with? Surely this is a bad thing.
that introduce the ideas of sequence, loops, if..then, variables
The "if...then" is more professionally called "branching"
"BBC" and "Professional" are mutually exclusive
It was originally conceived to get kids into history. That's why he's a time traveller.
Now the flavour du jour is programming. I can't help but feel we've lowered our sights.
The original Tea Party wore Dhotis?
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
I think you are unintentionally proving his point. Not that I believe it.
You are one utterly dumb piece of shit.
You are just as bad you stupid cunt.
Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror
... The game's play centers on the player's character of the Doctor (specifically his sixth incarnation), and his robotic programmable cat Splinx. ...
Wait, how do you know a Dalek is a "him"?
The eye-cock, the raygun-cock, the plunger-cock, the scrotum bumps, ...
Actually, makes more sense that it's a woman then. They are essentially female beings with extreme cases of penis-envy who have given up their original bodies and put their brains into "strap-on" suits (armor) that give them the Alpha power and have all the "alpha male" symbols protruding from them in the extreme in order to create the emotional impact they desire.
These alien Space Amazon Feminists have had it and are now going to out do the males they so envy by destroying everyone that is male and all females that "co-conspire" with the males (by allowing them to exist). Which means they are trying to exterminate everyone but themselves.
And here comes the "Doctor", the arguably most ALPHA of the ALPHA Males in the entire universe.. Of course they would be obsessed with HIM and with destroying him.
-- My god.. I started writing this as a joke.. but now it actually makes sense. It fits everything perfectly.. The series needs only to reveal that Davros was actually a woman, a woman who hid the fact that she was a woman in order to attain the access and power necessary in her society to create her augmented Superior Female Race..
I wish I could post this under my account instead of as A.C. but this is too hot.
The code.org site is a great resource for teaching kids to program. Personally I'd have liked to see the BBC contribute their project to that where it would likely enjoy a lot more popularity.
Use Dr Who to teach science ... yeahhhh... what could go wrong?
The doctor who teaches kids to code. Where does s/he practice medicine?
You're an idiot.
Though Daleks are more speciest than racist, given their goal is to exterminate all non-Dalek life from the universe, the racist is the equivalent term for their beliefs from our current perspective.
You're an idiot.
Though Daleks are more speciest than racist, given their goal is to exterminate all non-Dalek life from the universe, the racist is the equivalent term for their beliefs from our current perspective.
So, I suppose Hitler wasn't a racist, right?
To be honest, you're splitting hairs here. Certain belief systems are extremely racist. I can't help it if yours happens to be included in that lot. Perhaps this will help shed some light as to the pitfalls of belief systems and religion in general.
Mankind has waged war for centuries because of varied belief systems (a.k.a. religious ideals). Ironically while you pray for peace, that same vehicle perpetuates violence.
Like many BBC products, this game appears only to be accessible within the UK. I'm in the US, and i'd happy buy a copy / access - this game would be a huge hit with my family! When I tried to go there, they directed me to the BBC Store site, which only sells physical goods. Come on, BBC!
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I feel bad for the parents. My wife and I are young, and we already can't stand the Daleks. Imagine those parents out there, who have likely been putting up with "EXTERMINATE" for more years than we have, and now it's not only those surprise Dalek episodes to contend with, but also kids running around thinking that Daleks are so cool and "Look mum! I programmed it to talk!"
I will definitely get this for my kids, especially since we are Dr. Who fans. I have great memories of playing Robot Odyssey, which had logic gates that you could "solder" together. Later on, I played RoboSport by Maxis, which wasn't as sophisticated but was still fun. Any others that people out there remember?
OK, I *would* definitely get this for my kids, except that I'm in the US and can't get it. Ah well ...
Of course Hitler was racist.
What hairs am I splitting? What specifically is my racist belief system?
I don't pray for peace.
Actually, closer examination reveals a parallel agenda. Mankind has never, ever, waged war because of varied belief systems.
The warfare was motivated by mundane greed and survival while fighting over limited resources.
The "belief" bullshit was just a rallying flag to pimp up a bunch of cutthroats.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Just as we had a little hope of losing some of that "geeky" image that goes with coding... Dr. WHO starts teaching to code.
Sigh.
Will this appeal to, e.g., girls?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Lately one hears a lot about initiatives to teach kids to code. Why? What's the big deal? Is there a shortage of coders worldwide? I understand that the likes of Microsoft and Facebook want to do so, so that they can develop an abundant market which will allow them to bring down salaries. But, otherwise? Kids will be better off learning basic skills through mathematics, rather than becoming the mindless code monkeys that those companies are pushing for.
it's the good doctor..
well, endless ones anyway....
Indians (or "Inde") is what the Apache nation were calling themselves before European explorers arrived.
Tom Baker was hawking Prime Computers. Must have picked up Fortran back then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Why not say in the summary which doctor?
Because it wasn't David Seville. "Ting tang walla walla bing bang!"
Screw you, BBC. My little girl is in tears you idiots. I live in NYC and I am the proud Dad of a 7 year old Dr. Who fanatic. As soon as I saw this I told my little girl and we were both so excited to play this game. Then, we got the stupid "you must be in the UK" message.
Really BBC? I am so disappointed. There are hard core Dr. Who fans who live outside the UK.
Don't do this to your fans!
That should be "The Doctor to teach kids to code".
The programme is "Doctor Who", the lead character is "The Doctor".
It is a political term, and nothing more.
Generally it is used for those who resist the idea that the third world must be imported into the first world, reducing the first world population to a third world hybrid, thus destroying culture, heritage and values and making it more tractable by the twin parasites of government and industry.
Futurist Traditionalism
Another waste of licence payers money. It's about time the BBC was privatised and the license fee abolished. The government doen't force you to buy a Sky TV subscription nor should it force you to subsidise the BBC.
Apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines is a good idea!
What could possibly go wrong?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
10 EXTERMINATE
20 GOTO 10
They could also use Dr Who to get kids to exercise.
They could have merit badges like.
Level 1 Can you outrun a cyberman.
Level 2 Can you outrun a dalek.
Level 3 Can you outrun a weeping angel.
Sounds like the typical online gamer profile to me. Wanna gods, warriors, psychopathic killers etc.
(of course I am joking..... sort of....)
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
So, I suppose Hitler wasn't a racist, right?
I'd say Daleks are best described as xenophobic; if they were merely racist, their hatred would have stopped with the elimination of the Thals. Given the chance, Hitler almost certainly would have been xenophobic as well, but the only recognizably sentient beings his reich encountered were humans, thus racist is more correct for him.
- T
No doubt this will be some sandboxed, fluffy, guided deal, completely missing many of the genuine problem solving skills which lead to a true understanding of what it is to code to create solutions.
Remember kids, #00FF00 is not a creative color.
If everybody wants to fix a shortage, start with one that matters. Of course that won't happen, because lowering technology and engineering salaries is the path to big profits for businesses, who cares about lowering the cost of healthcare and possibly improving care?
Yeah, when reading the summary Robot Odyssey was the first thing that came to mind. Apparently there is a Java reimplementation here (wonder how long until that is ported to Android).
OK, I *would* definitely get this for my kids, except that I'm in the US and can't get it. Ah well ...
The good points gained by them for creating this software are immediately negated by their deliberate and willful withholding of it from the rest of the world. Almost makes them look racist/nationalist for only wanting "their own" to benefit from this educational software... I mean, why not at least make it available for sale outside of Britain?
The UK equivalent of the Tea Party is UKIP. Most of their members are presumably long term meths/drain cleaner drinkers judging by their level of intellect.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
"Apachu" was the name used by the Zuni people for the Apache and Navajo people. The Apache themselves didn't adopt that name for themselves until after the US Government had.
Nah the Tea Part is the PERFECT name for these people. The original tea party was a astroturf protest instigated by wealthy tea importers who looked to lose business thanks to their businesses being made obsolete by a direct sales model combined with a *lower tax*.
England thought they had found the perfect solution: their too-big-to-fail tea company would see increased profits thanks to direct sales and the Americans would get lower prices and reduced taxes.
Instead a bunch of self interested 1%'ers spun something ostensibly *good* for the people into an "evil plot to take your money!" to distract from the fact that they were actually better off with the tea tax.
The fact that they blamed a disadvantaged minority group for their own actions is just icing on the cake.
The parallels are eerie.
I've wanted a modern version of Omega for quite while now.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Robot Odyssey, there should be a classic remake of that game by now. RoboSport was fun, but limited programming of the robots to shoot at visible targets and move. (I keep a W9X virtual machine just for RoboSport.) Again, should be a remake of that by now. And remember Rocky's Boots, before Robot Odyssey.
Though Daleks are more speciest than racist, given their goal is to exterminate all non-Dalek life from the universe
There have been several episodes in which two different races of daleks fight each other over which is the superior form of dalek. See, for example, Remembrance of the Daleks. (Scarily, that's the 4th result on google's autocomplete if I type "remembrance"...!)
Yes but the real question is do you know the basics to loops and recursion?