Way back in the 1960s, researchers at MIT created Logo, an early programming language designed to teach children the basics of instruction-based coding. In honour of 50 years of teaching kids to code, Google has transformed its logo into a fun little rabbit-based coding game.
Designed in 1967 by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon, Logo is a language often associated with turtle graphics, vector (line-based) graphics drawn on a coordinate plane using a relative cursor. The coder gives instructions to the cursor – turn, move a certain distance, turn, repeat – and the cursor draws designs. It’s something I played with in computer class back in the ’80s.
Google’s interactive Doodle, “Coding for Carrots”, uses the same basic idea. Players must help the adorable rabbit gather its carrots by assembling a series of simple instructions – forward, turn left, turn right, loop. The commands appear as colourful coding blocks players snap together, based on the Scratch programming language for kids.
Block-based instruction programming is a simple and entertaining way to teach kids about coding. Plus it makes for a pretty mean strategy board game. It’s definitely worth celebrating. Hop to it!
Oh man, I remember LOGO on the Atari 800, and then building an actual little turtle with a pen that you could draw pictures on paper with, using the language.
I taught myself to program using Logo. It was good for much more than drawing shapes. Even the Apple IIe version was a proper language, with subroutines and on the fly user input and the like.
Love this kind of stuff :).