Programming in the Small: Kids, Chickens, and Ruby

After several years of programming in Ruby using Shoes, my daughter and I were hunting for a new project. Something more useful than a game. Something with a real-world connection. Then it struck us: Chickens!

Join us as we show you how we built our coop monitoring system. It’ll be a wild ride of hardware hacking, weather-proofing, and father-daughter bonding, with Ruby sprinkled throughout. You’ll learn how to modernize your surroundings, and about engaging the young people in your life in technology along the way.

Transcript

1. Programming in the Small Kids, Chickens, and Ruby
4. The Problem
5. 11 chickens
6. Similar Eggs
7. Different Laying Speeds
13. THE SOLUTION
15. #dadtip Chunk It Up #dadtip
16. #coratip fun to spend time with Dad #coratip
17. The HARDWARE
19. #dadtip Try Things Ahead
20. smile for the camera
22. REAdy to install
25. The Software (PI)
26. Programming on the TV!!
28. #dadtip Terminal == Cool Give them real tools!
29. #coratip Be Careful or the program won't work #coratip
31. #dadtip Fast Results
33. Thank You for Fairyfloss @sailorhg!
34. #dadtip Don't get too hung up on doing things "Right"
35. The Software (SHOES)
36. #dadtip Draw It On Paper First!
38. #coratip experiment with how it looks #coratip
40. #dadtip Ask permission to type
41. The Demo
42. The FUTURE
43. Better LIGHTING
44. Better Date List
45. Faster Pictures!
46. OCR
47. Optical Chicken Recognition
48. Motion detection
49. Door open/close
50. Thank you!!! Questions? http://jasonrclark.com/kidscode/