Title: Raspberry Pi Projects for Kids - Second Edition
Author: Daniel Bates
Publisher: PACKT Publishing
Publishing date: April 2015
Subtitle: Leverage the power of programming to use the Raspberry Pi to create awesome games
Link: https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and-creative/raspberry-pi-projects-kids-second-edition
Review
The first chapter of the book follows a tradition of other Pack books about Raspberry Pi and describes the system and how to set it up.
In the second chapter, the author introduces the main programming language featured in the book: Scratch.
This chapter represents a good introduction to the language and to program a simple animation, while the next one goes deeper on the language, using another game as an example.
The fourth chapter deals with Python. I must admit that, in my opinion, this chapter aims to cover too many subjects at once. It might prove to be difficult for the reader to absorbe all the information provided.
But if the reader manages to keep up with everything, there are a lot of useful examples and all the main features of Python are discussed.
In the fifth chapter, the user is guided through creating a game that is programmed in Python, and the author shows how to create a simple game controller, building it from scratch.
After this, there’s a chapter that focuses on using Google Maps inside a Python program and teaches how to personalize a program adding buttons and other widgets to it.
The last chapter focuses on how to play notes and songs using Sonic Pi. Readers will understand how to do it via simple commands, writing a program that acts as a complete composer.
The entire book is full of really interesting examples, but I am under the impression that it shows the readers the pros and cons of different technologies without going deeper in any of them. A little more that 120 pages can’t be enough to discuss all the fascinating topics mentioned in the book.
The book doesn’t seem to be suitable for kids, but it would be a good choice for parents who want to learn to program captivating games, maybe to share them with their children.
In this way, it can be wonderful choice, but if you want to continue to program games, you are bound to need further reading, at least about Scratch and Python.
Author: Daniel Bates
Publisher: PACKT Publishing
Publishing date: April 2015
Subtitle: Leverage the power of programming to use the Raspberry Pi to create awesome games
Link: https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and-creative/raspberry-pi-projects-kids-second-edition
Review
In the second chapter, the author introduces the main programming language featured in the book: Scratch.
This chapter represents a good introduction to the language and to program a simple animation, while the next one goes deeper on the language, using another game as an example.
The fourth chapter deals with Python. I must admit that, in my opinion, this chapter aims to cover too many subjects at once. It might prove to be difficult for the reader to absorbe all the information provided.
But if the reader manages to keep up with everything, there are a lot of useful examples and all the main features of Python are discussed.
In the fifth chapter, the user is guided through creating a game that is programmed in Python, and the author shows how to create a simple game controller, building it from scratch.
After this, there’s a chapter that focuses on using Google Maps inside a Python program and teaches how to personalize a program adding buttons and other widgets to it.
The last chapter focuses on how to play notes and songs using Sonic Pi. Readers will understand how to do it via simple commands, writing a program that acts as a complete composer.
The entire book is full of really interesting examples, but I am under the impression that it shows the readers the pros and cons of different technologies without going deeper in any of them. A little more that 120 pages can’t be enough to discuss all the fascinating topics mentioned in the book.
The book doesn’t seem to be suitable for kids, but it would be a good choice for parents who want to learn to program captivating games, maybe to share them with their children.
In this way, it can be wonderful choice, but if you want to continue to program games, you are bound to need further reading, at least about Scratch and Python.
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