Sonic Pi - Lesson 1

Lesson Objectives

• Know that there are many different types of computing devices.
• Understand how a computer uses a sequence of statements to do something, and that this sequence is called a program.
• Be able to give the Raspberry Pi some instructions to make some music

Below is an example of what the program looks like. 

1. Split the class into groups again and give each group a deck of the computer program cards. Ask each group to take out the statement cards and the control card from the deck. Then ask each group to form a line and to give each member of the group a statement card after shuffling them. The person at the start of the line should be given the control card. Explain that the person holding the control card should carry out the instructions on the statement card, and then pass the control card to the next person in the line like a relay baton. When the control card has reached the end of the line, they should stop. This should be repeated for a number of random orderings, after which the groups could be invited to create their own orderings. A helpful analogy might be cooking, where collections of statements are recipes and the control flow is which stage of the recipe you're at.
   
   
2. Start the Sonic Pi software. First, invite the students to log into their Raspberry Pi and start the graphical environment. It might help to display instructions on how to achieve this on a projector for all to see.
   
   
3. Explain to them that they can use the same statements on the cards in the computer program:play and sleep. Invite them to spend the remaining time writing their own programs and listening to the results.

To Finish

Groups should be invited to choose card orderings for other groups to act out. Following this, a discussion should be held about how this relates to a computer. A computer works by executing statements one after another in a specific order. A given order of statements is called a program. Each program executes with a given control flow; this describes which statement we are executing and what the next statement will be.