Introduction to Python

Link to this page: bit.ly/pyint

Student Qualifications

• Grades 4–12
• Logical thinking and math skills
• Facility with computers
  • Keyboard Proficiency

Resources

• Getting Started with Python (class Python web page #2)
• RoomHelper 3000 (works in class only)
• An empty Python project on repl.it (Click on the Google icon to log in)
• Adventure games for you to modify
  • Simple Adventure
  • Ship Adventure
• Python web site
  • Python tutorial
• My YouTube Channel with Programming Lessons
• My Python Playlist

Class Description

Python is used for creating games, websites, and much more. Python is a real programming language used by professionals (Google, for example, has lots of Python programmers). One of our projects will be a text adventure game. We will learn about and practice using many parts of Python, including

• Communicating with the user (print, input)
• Taking action depending on conditions (if)
• Looping (while, for)
• Making things happen randomly in games (random module)
• Storing data in various ways
  • Tuples
  • Lists
  • Dictionaries

Students will use their creativity and new programming skills to create projects like those shown below (click to view the entire document), including an adventure game with various interesting places, and events that occur probabilistically at those places:

Challenges

Challenge 1: Interact with the user

Write a program that greets the user, asks a question, and then “print”s a message that changes depending on their answer. For examples, look at Hello, World, Getting Input, and Doing Different Things Depending on Input Received, here.

Challenge 2: Tuples and random.choice

Make a program that uses tuples and random.choice. For example, one that displays a randomly-chosen “fun fact”, or tells a joke.

Advanced Challenge 1: Adventure Games

Study either of the Adventure games listed in Resources and make your own.