I suppose less of a question and more of a plea for help… I am a primary school teacher, and I have a couple of proffie sabers. I would love to run a session introducing some 10-11 year old children to the basics of proffie coding. Does anyone here have any experience with this or any activity ideas that could work well with a small class of children? I would like to show them how certain commands can be used to create certain effects, and possibly get them to write some of their own commands (using plenty of prompts and cheat sheets) that I can then show to them on the saber. Problem is I don’t have good enough knowledge to properly break it down for them.
My initial thoughts were focused on the RGB colour numbers, ignition and retraction times, as well as a single effect that they could look at and create different options for - which I would then take in, build a config and show them their ‘designs’ next lesson using their retraction times, colours and style option.
Education is important to me, so I will help in any way I can.
I guess my first question is what class this would be a part of, and what are you hoping to actually teach the kids? How colors work? How programming works? Shop class? Some introduction to electronics? Star Wars 101?
Constructing styles is generally more an exercise in math and lateral thinking than actual programming. It can be thought of as an application of mathematical functions, but I don’t think functions are introduced as a concept in 5th grade…
If I may be so bold as to chime in since I am coordinating something around where I live. I gotta agree there. Locally they only give basics as to code programs starting in 3rd and 4th grade. Proffie type stuff has paralleled more STEM and Algebra oriented classes. By all means go for it but go with basics. Use the stuff that’s available in say @Fett263’s OS5StyleLibrary and then the StyleEditor. With the ability to build out the prior code version and then layerize (break the code down to where you can see how each layer does what) it’s more understandable and easier to teach. From there you can let the kids play not just with colors but the actual function values of the (usually first two) primary blade style line(s) to get different effects and then show where things like bump, audio flicker, pulse etc come into play as to the specific blade style layer and then transition into the layered effects like blast, drag, lightening block etc.
I would like to get them on the style editor, and would like them to be able to create and understand a very basic style - something like an audioflicker with blast and lockup. I’m planning on making a cheat sheet/booklet which highlights in different colours the different aspects of the code so I can speak to them about nesting etc. The plan when they have their ideas is for me to go away, make up a config with their styles, and show them next time.
The library does the work for you, if you’re teaching I’d just stick with the Editor. I was only able to build the styles in the library after learning how it all worked on Editor.
The library is meant to take the “work” out of it, kinda like an answer key. If you want to teach the “problem solving” part give them a visual to recreate and have them use the Editor to accomplish. I actually did this a few times on my live shows for users to learn the styles and Editor.
Recreating a style as a challenge is a great idea! Sticking to the editor is going to be the way forward like you said. I’ll post up the resources/results when I am done, excited.