This app was mentioned in 32 comments, with an average of 1.84 upvotes
spacechem or anything from zachtronics that could be released on andorid so far, but couldnt find even spacechem on playstore, afaik moved to own store
I'm in the middle of studying to take my CS cert! Man, 4 weeks sounds brutally short to get kids through anything like coding, whats your age range?
I think the idea of language agnostic lessons would be more beneficial for how little youll have them. If you focus on the concepts of language structure itll be easier for them to translate it to a language of their own choice. Cause frankly, 1 month? Theyre only gonna keep that stuff in their heads if they want too.
Unfortunately i dont have too many suggestions, however i found a game in the google play store that i thought would be great for students.
Its called "hacked". It frames basics of coding as puzzles. And you kinda construct functions as you go. For example, one level's challenge is sorting an array and after you solve that level you gain access to a sort function. I dont know if you have the resources to provide that to each kid but maybe it could be a good source of inspiration for you.
Good luck friend!
EDIT: found a link to said game
Hacked
Great little mobile app that teaches the concepts of programming through a puzzle coding game. It's not language dependent as they created a generic language.
This is a good android app. It's like a puzzle game based on programming concepts. It obviously won't teach you how to program, but it's a great way to practice in your down time.
There's a game called hacked which is basically small programming/logic puzzles that get harder over time. Best thing is you don't have to type everything out, you can just drag and drop the statements.
This is a puzzle game on Android that I stumbled upon a while ago. If you can work through it, it will teach you some programming basics.
If you don't have an Android, you can use an Android Emulator. I'll leave the finer 'how-to' details up to you. As you'll need some pretty strong 'Google-Fu' to program/debug.
I like the concept, but can I make a suggestion? A REPL would allow the player to learn the game from the game, as opposed to cracking open the documentation before they can begin playing.
For an example of this, see the game Hacked on Android.
There's also a game on Android called Hacked. It uses a rudimentary language to walk you through algorithm exercises. The reward for each level is the ability to use the algorithm as a command in later exercises. For example, you have to build a MULT command using a loop and addition commands before you can use it. Really good for people working on their 'algorithmic thinking'.
Hacked is one of the few programming games I know of.
There are no right or wrong questions, ask whatever you like!
As for starting, if you have absolutely no experience with programming, I guess the first step is figuring out whether you actually like it or not, trying out some scripting languages like python (which is a nice language, actually), a pseudo-language like scratch or even a programming game.
If you prefer to get started with the actual programming right away, you have three main languages categories to choose from: procedural languages (also called 'classic' languages, or non OOP, like plain C), OOP ( Object-Oriented Programming, like Java) or backend languages( also called server-side, like PHP).
There's Hacked which just opened up from beta. It does a pretty good job of teaching some of the basic concepts of programming. (Conditional statements, collections, loops, functions, etc).
Edit: Just realized this is probably what you were talking about in your post. Don't be intimidated by it, give it a go. If you really want to have a primer in coding, there's always sites like Code Academy and Code School.
There's one called Hacked that is literally making simple programs to solve a problem. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hackedapp
Hacked is a great game where you do different coding problems.
imma bot myself
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hackedapp
Hacked is a decent game
Is this it OP? It's been 5 hours and no link, so I thought it might be helpful to go find it for anyone who's curious.
I like hacked
If I may suggest a game, hacked is a really fun programming game on android although it seems to not have been updated in a long time.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hackedapp
Dunno if its too easy, I had fun with it as newbie
This game is one I learned about recently and have enjoyed a lot: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hackedapp&hl=en
I thought this one was pretty fun for Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hackedapp
I randomly came across this just now. It uses a non-typing approach: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hackedapp&hl=en