Good puzzle for kids to solve on 35s?

[snaggs]

I want to teach my 10 year old son some simple programming. Can anyone suggest a simple problem I could get him to solve using the 35s that has enough steps to be fun?

Daniel

[Csaba Tizedes (Hungary)]

Fibonacci numbers - How little rabbits are made? :-o

;)

[Don Shepherd]

How about guess the number, 1-100? The calculator generates a random number and he tries to guess it, and it tells him how many guesses it took when he gets it. This has the added advantage of teaching him about a binary search.

[Namir]

And you can do the reverse game, have your son guess a number between 1 and 100 and the calculator try to figure out the number.

Perhaps the simplest program is having the calculator add integers from 1 to a specified upper limit and then comparing the result with Gauss's formula n(n+1)/2.

Namir

[Eddie W. Shore]

All I can think of is finding areas of (simple) geometric shapes like the circle, rectangles, ellipses, and right triangles.

[Kimberly Thompson]

Daniel

If I may suggest a modification to the suggestion by Csaba - population dynamics - w an emphasis on intersecting populations. The following URL(s) are very informative;

Link to Population Game

Link to Foxes-Rabbits Game

This topic has a COMPLETE HP-25 published example. It might be slightly over the top for a 10 year old, but it is very do-able on an HP-35s.

BEST!
SlideRule

[Namir]

What is the link to that HP-25 listing please?

Namir

[Kimberly Thompson]

Namir

I'm looking for the parent source of a listing extracted from page 6 of an HP publication (Journal - maybe?). I can 'drop' the pdf extract to your email as a temp solution til I reconnect the child to the parent.

Sorry ALL, I'm 'cleaning up' my dusty tome of HP artifacts (35+ years) and it isn't always pretty.

BEST!

SlideRule

[Didier Lachieze]

Quote:

---

I'm looking for the parent source of a listing extracted from page 6 of an HP publication (Journal - maybe?).

---

"Three New Pocket Calculators : Smaller, Less Costly, More Powerful" from November 1975 HP Journal.

[Kimberly Thompson]

Didier

Yes ... THANKS!

SlideRule

[Matt Agajanian]

Two games I can recommend are the well-known 'Nimb' found in HP-25C, HP-33E and HP-34C program manuals or here in MoHPC's Program Library or 'Sum of Digits Game' from the HP Digest article 'How Programmable Calculators Help Kids Learn.'

Edited: 17 Sept 2013, 5:53 p.m.

[David Hayden]

It may be too advanced for a 10 year old, but finding prime factors of a number is fun too.