Kids playing Cargo-Bot write programs to control a robotic arm, having the robot move crates into the configuration shown on the top of the screen. Kids can work through a six-level tutorial first to get familiar with the controls and features (even the tutorial is challenging!). They can then move on to the five levels of play -- easy, medium, hard, crazy, and impossible -- with six puzzles each. The goal is not only to get the crates moved but to move them in as few programming steps as possible. A misstep crashes the crane into a wall, destroying it, but kids get unlimited chances to solve each puzzle and can replay for a higher score.
The concept is simple -- direct a robotic arm to move crates to a designated spot -- but young programmers will find the implementation quite challenging. And just like in coding, a working solution may not be the optimal solution. Scores depend on how concisely the program runs. Since kids can replay each level, they are empowered to take chances and to try multiple solutions -- even when they've had a successful one -- to find the best solution. Cargo-Bot encourages the kind of innovative thinking necessary for the digital age as it introduces kids to programming skills.
Kids can learn hands-on programming skills as they drag and drop directions into place to make the robotic arm move and do what they tell it to. They'll learn the gist of programming concepts like procedural abstraction, subroutines, looping constructs, and conditional programming without having to master the lingo or detailed syntax of code. Kids will practice tackling a big problem by breaking it down into smaller problems to solve, a foundation of writing good code.
Use Cargo-bot to bring STEM into the classroom. Have a programmer talk to kids about careers in computer programming as well as the importance of each step of the coding process and how the game relates. Once kids have mastered the concepts, encourage them to write their own programs using tools available on the iPad, like Codea, or online, like Scratch.