In this talk, Anna will argue how physical computing — building interactive systems such as robots that sense and act upon, or respond to the physical world — provides an ideal application space for teaching and learning programming concepts and problem solving; that appeals to a diverse audience; and that can provide a positive introduction to the world of open source software and hardware.
Drawing on her experiences teaching introductory programming with Arduino-based robots, Anna will step through a tutorial demonstrating how to develop a mobile PyBot - a robot programmed using Python and the Firmata protocol, and will provide tips to help you or the apprentice coders in your life to take the first steps towards a lifetime of loving to code.
Anna Gerber is a developer and technical project manager specialising in digital humanities projects at the University of Queensland’s ITEE eResearch Lab. Anna also enjoys tinkering with Arduino-based robots, sewable circuits, and 3D printing, and regularly delivers workshops on the above as well as introductory programming courses. Anna is passionate about open source, open hardware and open data and she is a Brisbane ambassador for the Open Knowledge Foundation.