One activity that I have been desperate to try out as part of a computing lesson is an unplugged introduction to coding. Coding (or programming) is essentially a computer language, it is our way of telling a computer, via a program, what we want it to do. Before Bee Bots, before robotics, before Scratch and before Makey Makey, this activity is bound to get the concept of programming into children’s curious minds in a funny and engaging way. The task then… HOW TO MAKE A JAM SANDWICH! Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. We as humans take the task of making a jam sandwich and we do several steps at once without thinking. But, in this activity the teacher is a ‘robot’ and takes all instructions literally. Take the following example: “You put the jam on the bread…” Sounds like a fair starting point. But this is what you end up with: So next, the children might say “Take the bread out of the packet” – so naturally, the robot does this: Eventually, of course, the children will begin to understand and take on board the learning objective, to be as specific as possible when giving instructions to ‘robots’ or machines. This is a lesson that will serve them well when it comes to early coding on Bee Bots and then, later, Scratch Jr/Scratch.
The ‘correct’ instructions, by the way, are:
Congratulations, in just 22 easy steps you have made a jam sandwich!
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