Helping Kids with Coding For Dummies by Camille McCue Ph.D & Sarah Guthals PhD

Author:Camille McCue, Ph.D & Sarah Guthals PhD [McCue, Camille & Guthals, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119380665
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2018-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 9-4 shows a switch statement written in Java along with the result of the program execution.

FIGURE 9-4: Java code, written in BlueJ, demonstrating use of a switch statement for selecting pizza serving quantities (top), and its output (bottom).

Advanced Logic, Unplugged

Young coders typically code simple conditionals before moving on to more complex logic. Your coder will want to level up his logic skills by putting together more than one condition. Doing so allows him to create compound conditionals, facilitating the selection of many different routes through a program.

Prior to diving into the actual programming details of compound conditionals (many conditionals put together), help your coders cement the logic of working with multiple if-then statements in more familiar settings. Many beloved childhood board games and puzzles are predicated on logical operations, including Guess Who, Clue, and Mastermind. Playing and winning the game requires players to construct and use conditionals, specifically compound conditionals. Here is what each game addresses:

Guess Who (Figure 9-5) is a sort of whodoneit? two-player game that's perfect for the early elementary crowd. In Guess Who, each of two players possess a set of characters with different hair color, eye color, and clothing accessories. Each player selects a “mark” and her opponent attempts to guess the identity of the mark by asking true/false questions to eliminate characters. Following the elimination of all characters who don’t match, the character who remains is the mark. Ultimately, finding the mark is a process of executing a compound conditional statement. For example, “if the person (is a redhead and wears glasses and not male) then the person is the mark.”

Clue (Figure 9-6) is another classic whodoneit? game, with multiple players working to solve a murder mystery. Players of all ages, from elementary schoolers through octogenarians enjoy Clue. Game action involves each player rolling dice to move game pieces around the board and make conjectures about who committed the crime, the type of murder weapon, and the room in which the crime occurred. Following each conjecture, other players report a part of the conjecture as true or false. Learning what is true and false provides clues that advance the player ever closer to solving the mystery. Best of all, your young coder will learn that, determining whether “Colonel Mustard did it and he did it in the Ballroom and he used the Candlestick,” is great practice for writing complex conditionals!

Mastermind (Figure 9-7) is a code-making and code-breaking two-player game in which one player makes a code and her opponent works to break the code. Kids of middle school age and older find this game incredibly fun and addictive. Each code consists of four pegs, which can be arranged in any sequence using pegs of six different colors. The code breaker takes a shot in the dark on the first guess, for example guessing purple-purple-yellow-yellow. The code maker then indicates, how many pegs are not correct; how many are the correct color and not correct position; and how many are the correct color and correct position.

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