Easy as Pi

by Sam

Over the past year I've sort of started programming. I first got introduced to the idea when my father bought a Raspberry Pi. On it was installed a little program called Scratch. It looked pretty simple, not as hard as I had envisioned programming most of the time, and I asked Dad about some sort of class over the summer.  And so began a great journey.

So I started with Scratch (here's a couple of things I've done: http://scratch.mit.edu/users/samamstar/) and opened a door. For the next 3/4 of a year I mostly just stuck with Scratch thinking that a command line would be really difficult (Scratch is a very simple connect block thing). But I heard Python was really simple as far as command line programming goes and Dad had bought a book on programming in Python when we bought the Pi so I decided to try it.

The main reason I decided to get interested in Python was because the Raspberry Pi had a version of Minecraft for it that you could use a Python API to program it. So I've made a Minesweeper in Minecraft and a snake game. I've been working on Tetris, but that's not going very well.

And on my birthday what might I get but a programmable robot made out of Legos! I saved all my Christmas and birthday money and with a big jump from my grandparents (thanks Grammy!) I could afford it. So far I've made a scorpion that can move its legs, a snake that can attack you, and a shell game. Here's a demonstration of something I've made:

In the future I hope to use experience like this in a job. But for now it's just for fun.