101 Computing Challenges

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Computer Science, Uncategorized

101 Computing Challenges - Book Cover Looking for some inspiration to learn or teach Computing concepts? Fancy a new challenge?

This book is targeted at both learners (from 9 to 99 years old and above) and educators (parents, teachers…) who want to find a challenging end enthusing approach to learn about computing concepts and develop programming skills.

As a learner…

As a learner you will be able to pick up any challenge based on what motivates you and on your current skills. Each challenge has a level of difficulty to help you choose. The learning objectives are clearly identified so that you can focus on a challenge based on the skills you want to develop.

As an educator/teacher…

For educators this book can be used in many different ways. You may be running a computing club and want to find exciting challenges for students to complete together or compete against each other. Alternatively you can decide to focus on one of these challenges with your class and approach it with a more directed step by step approach to help pupils discover new skills. Or you can use some of these challenges as homework tasks. Why not give students one or two of these challenges to focus on during the end of term break.

Need dummy data fo fill in your tables?

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Computer Science, Computing Concepts, Database Concepts

Using websites such as www.generatedata.com you can generate large set of dummy data in just a few clicks. You can choose the fields and data types you need and generate a CSV file ready to import into your database or spreadsheet.

Tagged with: Data, Database

Can you explain this equation?

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Computer Science, JavaScript

== and != are called comparison operators. They are used to compare two values and see whether they are the same (==) or check if they are different (!=). E.g.

if (gender=="Male") alert("You are a man.");

= is used to assign a value to a variable. E.g.

myFavouriteNumber=5;

To Sum it up…

An = sign is used to assign a value to a variable: e.g.

var a=3;
a=5+2;

An == sign is used to compare if two values are equal e.g.

if (a==3) {
    alert("a is equal to 3");
} else {
    alert("a is not equal to 3");
}

A != sign is used to compare if two values are different e.g.

if (a!=3) {
    alert("a is not equal to 3");
 } else {
     alert("a is equal to 3");
 }

Tagged with: Comparison Operator, JavaScript

16 Million Colours

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Computer Science, HTML, CSS & JavaScript

When designing webpages you have to identifiy the key colours of your colour scheme. And considering that the RGB colour palette consists of 16 Million colours (16,777,216 to be exact) this can be a tricky task!

Website such as www.colorpicker.com will help you get the colour code for your favourite colours!

Tagged with: HTML, RGB

Do you know your colour codes?

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Computer Science, HTML, CSS & JavaScript

When creating your HTML pages you will most likely use colour codes in HTML or even better in your CSS code.

Do you understand how hexadecimal colour codes work? If so you should be able to guess the colour codes for all of these colours without the need to look it up on the Internet.

Tagged with: CSS, Hexadecimal, HTML, RGB

Any Free Alternative to MS Access?

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Computer Science, Database Concepts, Free Downloads

8 of the Challenges listed in the 101 Computing Challenges book require you to use an RDBMS (Relational Database Management Software) which support the creation of multiple objects such as tables, queries, input forms and reports.

One of the most popular desktop database management system is Micrsoft Access which is perfectly fine to complete these challenges. It’s a very good tool to learn Relational Database concepts. However it is part of the Microsoft Office suite and is not free to download.

You can however consider a free alternative to Microsoft Access such as Apache OpenOffice Base. The Appache OppenOffice is an open source suite of applications similar in many ways to Microsoft Office. The main difference being that it is free to download. You can find out more about Apache OppenOffice Base by vistitin this webpage:

http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html

Tagged with: Database, RDBMS, Relational Database

Star Script in Scratch

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Block Programming, Computer Science, Scratch

Here is a cool little script for you to try…

Tagged with: Block Programming, iteration, Scratch

Starting from Scratch!

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Block Programming, Computer Science, Free Downloads, Scratch

Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, video games, and animations. It provides a dynamic and visual approach to programming where learners can drag and drop scripting blocks to write their computer programs. It’s very popular in schools as it provides a very intuitive user interface and the ability to get started easily and to start creating complex algorithms quite quickly.

There are two options when using Scratch. You can either create an account online and use the web interface to create, save and share your games.

Alternatively you can download the desktop application (Scratch 1.4 or scratch 2.0 beta, though you may want to check their website as their might be an earlier version available by the time your read this book)

Find out more about scratch on:

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Tagged with: Block Programming, Scratch

HTML & CSS Editor: NotePad++

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Computer Science, Free Downloads, HTML, CSS & JavaScript, JavaScript

A text-editor will be required for you to type your code especially when writing HTML, CSS or Javascript code. Our recommendation is to use a free text editor such as Notepad++. There are other alternatives that would most likely be suitable. When choosing your text editor you should choose one that has at least the following features:

Can edit multiple documents at the same time (e.g. Using tabs)
Syntax highlighting supporting multiple programming languages (incl. HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python)
Syntax folding (sections of code can be collapsed/expanded)
Line numbering (makes troubleshooting a lot easier)
Customizable GUI (Toolbar options, layout, colour scheme…)

You can download Notepad++ for free on:

http://notepad-plus-plus.org

Tagged with: CSS, HTML, Notepadd++, text editor

Python IDE: PyScripter

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Administrator Posted in Computer Science, Free Downloads, Python Challenges

Though you can start writing and testing your own programs once you have installed Python, we would strongly recommend that you investigate installing a Python IDE (integrated Development Environment). There are several free Python IDEs available, but if you are not sure which one to choose from, we shall recommend PyScripter which is a free, open-source IDE. It will make it a lot easier to type your code (Syntax highlighting and checking as you type, indentation options…) and mainly to troubleshoot and debug your code using the built-in debugging tools (breakpoints, variables windows…).

You can download PyScripter for free:

https://code.google.com/p/pyscripter/‎

Tagged with: IDE, Integrated Development Environment, PyScripter, Python

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