Beyond Black Boxes: Programming Theater

This activity was developed through our experience working with younger girls, ages 9-10, who had very limited experience with technology. For this activity we developed a skit that illustrated the programming of a cricket. We found that this very playful approach to programming helped the girls become excited about writing their own programs.

To begin this activity we enlisted a cast of mentors to perform a skit in which each "girl" programmed a cricket to turn on a motor for 5 seconds.

The cast of characters:

• The girl programming the cricket

• The computer

• The interface cricket

• The cricket

• The motor

Each character used the actual crickets, motors etc. as props and wore a badge indicating which role they were playing. Once the mentors had performed the skit, the girls chose parts and experimented with programming the cricket in different ways.

We also experimented with introducing the girls to new programming commands (such as onfor, rd (reverse direction) and had them work to physically program a partner.

Inspiration