Ask HN: Best thing to show a 10 yr old to spark his interest in programming?

Have you looked on the Internet?

There is a great amount of things out there for doing this:

-) Arduino (arduino.cc): produce open source electronic gadgets, often DIY and customizable (might spark his interest, as many gadgets are also fun to use: e.g. tv-b-gone (only building, but fun to use)

-) Lego (http://mindstorms.lego.com)

Very easy approach to programming especially designed for children

-) Scratch programming Language (http://scratch.mit.edu/)

Easy to learn programming language especially designed for children (Age 6 and upwards)

and btw: don't forget your own motivation

If you are willing to teach him in an interesting manner (and in my experience kids can be motivated to take a shine toward anything if it's done with a great approach), then i can even imagine that he might have fun playing around with html, setting up just4fun websites (just don't allow him to do so on the web ;).

BonsaiDen 13y ago ↗

I could see Mindstorms working out really great :) Or just any sort of "simple" 3D game engine. I think it's important that he sees immediate results, he can learn the gritty details over time, having the actual feeling of creating something is a big motivator. At least it was for me, back when I was like 12 and started out on my own, surprisingly I remember being way more productive back then I think I once wrote a really decent cannon hill clone in a week or so, but today I can hardly get any project started at all, meh.

kaghaffa 13y ago ↗

I definitely looked into Scratch and it seems perfect since the visual aspect would help him out a lot. But I never looked into Lego Mindstorms! This looks awesome (and even I got a little excited as well). I'm pretty sure this is what I'll be going with since he loves Legos already. Thanks for the response!

ari_elle 13y ago ↗

Glad i could help

Happy hacking :)

dirktheman 13y ago ↗

Second on Arduino, it's just so much fun, you get inmediate results and you learn about both hardware and software. It should be doable for a 10 y/o: http://sylviashow.com/episodes/s1/e3/full/arduino

rman666 13y ago ↗

How about Logo? MWLogo on Windows might be fun.

rauar 13y ago ↗

I'd try to make him curious on implemeting your own (simple) game.

lsiebert 13y ago ↗

The first time I programmed anything I was like 8 or 9, on a 486. It was QBasic. The thing I really loved was visual stuff and audio stuff. Text to the screen, feh, I wans randomly placing circles, with random sizes and colors, and using that same stuff to also make my computer beep accordingly.

I loved that. I honestly didn't get much beyond that, but it was pretty cool to make the screen change.

Scratch is probably good for that. That said, I'd probably start with a language like ruby or python if I was going to teach somebody 12 or up, simply because he can continue to learn it.

dgunn 13y ago ↗

I would build a long term project together. Maybe a website. Buy him a domain with his name in it (he'll get a big kick out of showing it off to his friends). Start with just static html and build it about something which interests him. Over time you can build little js calculators or what have you. In a year or two introduce a back end language like python/ruby. Teach how to handle data submissions, handle users/members, etc... Something like this can start simple and get as complex as you wish over time.

chris_dcosta 13y ago ↗

Just ask.

"Do you want to learn how to program a computer?" was all it took for my nephew (9) to start.