8th grader here! I've been programming for a relatively years (maybe around 7-8, very basic stuff of course, like turtle games and scratch. Huge thanks to my Dad :) ), and this seems like a really really great thing to do.
Most people in my grade I think would be able to make it through making a calculator, but maybe with some trouble. I'm also not sure if many of them have the attention span either.
I think my favorite thing about this is how it's all text based. My school currently does an event every year called "hour of code" where you do some visual programming for about 40 minutes (class period cuts it off). It's usually the same thing every year, and it seems like people don't learn anything new at them.
I hope your students keep on learning, and you keep on teaching!
I'm an 11th grader and for Hour of Code we have just recently graduated from block-based programming... to HTML. I personally just either do my computer programming homework or work on a side project, but I don't believe that the Hour of Code is too useful to anyone else.
I feel like someone needs to make some sane Hour of Code activities for high school students and do things like presenting on it at conferences and podcasts. From what I can tell from multiple years of presenting similar things, those are some of the best ways to get an idea to public school technology administration.
Hour of Code includes options that use JavaScript and Python (and a handful of less mainstream options). If you are allowed to choose, you can use the filter on the side to select 'Language: Typing'.
As someone who had programming in the 8th grade (Basic/turbo), the knowledge I received was a short-term one. Anything complex like calculators, games did not work for me/my peers. 8th grade math/logical thinking is not at the level you'd need as the concepts are way too abstract.
However, my second semester as a freshman high school (technical school) we did programming theory followed by quick labs (coding exercises in C, same "no-magic" principle) and then it all made sense. However, we first had like a month without any code where we were taught different data structures, functions, differences between declaring/defining, etc. That knowledge is still in use today.
We were introduced to Logo briefly in second grade (admittedly, I don't think the programming concepts really stuck at that point).
Then we were introduced to BASIC briefly in fifth grade. For some of us at least, concepts like conditionals and loops did stick. I remember going home and insisting my dad install a BASIC interpreter on his computer so I could write more programs.
BASIC doesn't really have the concept of a function, but we were already being taught about abstractions like "f(x) = x + 1" in seventh grade algebra, so I don't see why programming would be too abstract for an eighth grader.
You might not want to try to teach them Java or Erlang, but procedural or imperative Python like the article describes should be well within the abilities of a significant subset of kids that age.
Wrote my first program in 6th grade using the java Robot class to move the mouse and clear out my inventory on the online game Runescape. I had no intention of learning programming back then, i just hated all the tedious clicking lol. This got me super excited about programming, and im a dev now.
The class I wrote about also used Lego robots, but I was not involved in that, so I have no first-hand knowledge of it (although I heard many students liked them as well).
Thanks! It lasted from end of October till last week. I did three lessons of about one hour each. Olle did one lesson too where I wasn't there. The rest was their regular teacher, Caroline. I answered some mails with questions, and sent here some more example programs in between.
Most people in my grade I think would be able to make it through making a calculator, but maybe with some trouble. I'm also not sure if many of them have the attention span either.
I think my favorite thing about this is how it's all text based. My school currently does an event every year called "hour of code" where you do some visual programming for about 40 minutes (class period cuts it off). It's usually the same thing every year, and it seems like people don't learn anything new at them.
I hope your students keep on learning, and you keep on teaching!