Google Celebrates 50 Years Of Kids Programming Language With A Coding Doodle
Google is known to celebrate special days, be it festivals, events and more with a unique Doodle. This time too it was no different for the search giant when it decided to celebrate the computer science education week (CSEdWeek) and mark 50 years of children’s programming language with a unique theme called ‘Coding for Carrots.’
For those unaware, Logo is the world’s first programming language for kids, which was designed by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon in 1967. Logo is widely known for its use of turtle graphics, in which commands for movement and drawing produced line graphics either on screen or with a small robot called a turtle.
Celebrate #CSEdWeek & 50 yrs of kids coding languages by checking out our VERY FIRST coding #GoogleDoodle! ???? https://t.co/Kr7pjrLXOr pic.twitter.com/V0aJFBBAM2
— Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles) December 4, 2017
The never-seen-before interactive is a collaboration between three teams: Google Doodle, Google Blocky and MIT Scratch, a program run through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teaching kids how to code.
This first-ever coding doodle from Google teaches users to collect carrots with the help of a flurry bunny friend using code blocks. The white rabbit needs to cross six levels to gather the carrots. There is a tutorial before every level that helps the user learn the code block using kids coding language. In the game, a little bunny hops forward, makes a turn and collects all the carrots by snapping together coding blocks based on the Scratch programming language for kids.
“Kids programming on computers must have sounded futuristic and impractical in the 1960’s when Logo was first created. In fact, even in the 1980’s when I wrote my first lines of code, my working-class parents questioned how coding would ever benefit their nine-year-old daughter,” said Champika Fernando, Director of Communications at MIT Scratch, in a blog post published by Google.
“Today, computers are used in almost every aspect of our lives. We have them in our homes, at work, and in our pockets. My early experiences with computers gave me confidence that I could create with new technologies, not just interact with them. Those early experiences not only influenced my career path, but provided me with new ways to express my ideas and influence the world around me.
“My hope is that people will find this first experience appealing and engaging, and they’ll be encouraged to go further. In some ways, it’s very different from my first coding experience many years ago, but I hope it will be just as inspiring and influential for them.”
