Wow – the discovery idea for that would be crazy cool. I wouldn’t have known how to attempt that before learning some OOP, but I think I can see how that might be put together without too much struggle.

I remember my dad bringing home a copy of Borland Turbo C++ compiler for us to experiment with. I think I tried writing a one-line program and ran into a syntax error, and couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, so I stopped. I had a bit more success with Visual Basic/VBA, but got annoyed with it being tied to windows & office programs.

The entry cost of getting started with programming is so low now with languages like Python and Processing that it’s easy to get excited about getting them into the hands of students. The trick is in making sure their first programming experience is smooth enough and interesting enough that they want to come back.

This might be a fun way for kids to “discover” KMT—once you find the total impulse on the wall over a certain time, you could find average force and pressure easily.