The third collection of magic tricks, from Paul Curzon and Peter McOwan, is entitled ‘magic meets mistakes, machines and medicine. The five card tricks contained make use of maths and computer science theory, and are used by real magicians.

Each trick includes magician’s instructions. The theory behind each...

This edition of the Computing at School newsletter focuses on teaching computing in primary schools, and contains articles covering:

*Pedagogy of computing in primary schools

*National curriculum programme of study

*Game design in the primary classroom

*Primary – secondary transition...

This introductory article shows working examples of basic Python programs. It includes:

• Printing to the screen
• Comments
• Simple arithmetic
• Using variables
• Strings and string arrays
• For and While loops
• Random numbers from the Random library
• Creating a...

This resource is designed as an introduction to activities available using a Raspberry Pi computer. The introduction explains:
*what a Raspberry Pi is: a small, affordable yet powerful computer
*what can be learnt from this manual: how to perform simple programming and the basics of computer science...

The Royal Institution's 2023 Christmas Lectures - The truth about AI, will take place in December 2023 and will be broadcast on the BBC later in the month. This collection of resources from the STEM Learning digital resource collection can support the themes addressed in this three lectures series presented by...

This introduction to programming in Scratch uses a trivial example to demonstrate simple audio and animation. It is written for Scratch 1.4 but can be easily adapted for later versions. ...

This short practical guide shows how to implement a bubble sort algorithm in Scratch. The procedure is easy to follow, and can be used in conjunction with theory or unplugged activities to aid...

This simple game is an engaging way to extend learning in Scratch. It uses fairly simple scripts running in parallel to detect collisions and move sprites, which have been designed in the Scratch environment. It could be used a basis for other similar ‘scrolling’ games. 

This activity is an introduction to writing programs that can handle errors. It also helps students to understand number bases, by guiding them through the writing of a ‘base converter’ program.

Suitable for students throughout secondary computing, including those studying at an advanced level, this exercise introduces the Heap Sort and explores why it is more efficient than the Bubble Sort in another Scratch Patch article. Students learn about tree data structures, including the correct terminology for...

This game-writing activity using Scratch will bring back youthful memories for some! It provides...

This practical guide to creating a simple game is aimed at those new to programming with Scratch...

Combining some fundamental physics with trigonometry and computer programming, this guide helps students to create a simulation of the projectile motion of a cannon ball. The concepts are all briefly explained, and the program introduces some clever mathematics as well as game elements, such as collision detection...

This project, exploring basic encryption, is a useful introduction to data security as well as iterating through strings to manipulate them. The program create a ‘substitution cipher’, one of the most basic forms of encryption. It also demonstrates that, for more complex chained commands, Scratch becomes rather...

This visual mathematics project focuses on the beautiful images known as Julia Sets (named after French mathematician Gaston Julia). Students use a repeated iterations to explore the world of complex numbers, writing and amending a relatively complicated Scratch program.