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Originally Posted by ajlapp
but hey, a commodore 64 was a great solution.
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The C64 was the best machine to learn on... and the Programmer's Reference Manual from Commodore still sits on my shelf... graphics, sound, basic and machine code all in a small book about 3 or 4 cm thick.
I use PIC series microcontrollers with my students to make mini-sumo robots. (This is kind of how we ended up in FIRST... the students wanted to make something big enough to chase the grade 8's down the hall...) When they program a PIC, or a robot, they can write a very simple program and be pleased with the result because they have nothing to compare it to.
When they write a program for a PC, they compare it to something like Quake, or the latest gaming hit, and aren't that impressed. So really, FLL, VEX and FRC are really part of the solution for getting excited about programming... they remove the expectations and make everything a discovery.
Just my $.25,
Jason