Setting the Scene

I decided last week to do a project with my kids. The idea came after seeing how engrossed they are with the Tamigotchi devices we got them for Christmas. For those who don't know, these are little virtual pets. The kids just love them, feeding them, playing games with them, watching their virtual creatures grow and develop.

So I thought 'what if I was to develop a virtual pet program on the PC, and what if they were involved in that process?'

There are some challenges here. I am a software developer professionally, so I know the ins and outs, and I know the complexities that will be faced in developing even something as apparently simple as a virtual pet. But the children have no exposure to software development at all, not even an understanding that someone actually develops these things, that their Tamagotchies are not real creatures, but a program, the output of a human endeavor.

The children concerned are: Olivia (9), Benj (7) and Emily (6). Their ability to understand things differs of course, in particular their ability to understand and manipulate concepts and ideas varies in proportion with their age.

So the challenge is going to be to keep them interested in this project, which will take some time, will involve a lot of thinking and conceptual work, and will result in a game.

It is important in any project to understand the goals. So here is a first stab at the goals:

• To understand that programs on computers are a human endeavor, and they can be shaped to do what you want. To this end, I want each of the children to see something in the program that they have asked for.
• To see that something big can be built in small steps, iteratively, improving all the time. To this end, I want them to have some involvement in the planning and execution.
• To learn something about how to think - different ways to see something. They will each take something different out of it.
• To have fun doing it, and at the end, hopefully, playing it!
  

At the start of this project, the gap between what they understand now and what they could understand from this project is huge. It seems a little big - kids surely can't understand something this complex.

But a gut feeling tells me that they will each get something out of it, that they can rise beyond what we expect children to understand. Time will tell!