Teaching Kids to Program Things with Java and the Raspberry Pi

I just attended a talk at JavaOne (2014) titled "Teaching Kids to Program Things with Java and the Raspberry Pi" where I learned about the BlueJ project created by the University of Kent and its efforts to integrate with Pi4J and the Raspberry Pi.  

BlueJ is a lightweight Java IDE designed for beginners and includes all the basic functionality to get started programming including a code editor, compiling, executing and debugging capabilities.  

 

The idea is to install and use the BlueJ IDE directly on the Raspberry Pi to create Java programs that can run on the Pi and control things using the GPIO (via the Pi4J libraries).  Running the IDE directly on the Pi greatly simlpifies the learning curve to get started and reduces what would typically be a bunch of command line shell interation to simple clean user interfaces point and click activities.  

 

The talk was hosted by Ian Utting and Fabio Hedayioglu from the University of Kent and they provided a nice overview of the two leading development approaches using the Raspberry Pi and the challenges faced by the project to build the IDE targeted at the Raspberry Pi platform.  It was a great talk and introduction to BlueJ on the RaspberryPi.

 

 

Learn more about BlueJ on the Raspberry Pi here:

http://www.bluej.org/raspberry-pi.html

 

Below are a few of the key slides from the presentation. (Click image to enlarge)

 

  

 

Comments

[Hans Schwarze]

Hello, Robert Savage,
I came across your list of articles and suggestions by chance, looking at the raspihub for some help.
I wish to learn programming together with our grandchildren (11+), have read about the Raspi and know a bit about the arduino and the duinov3 - now would like to connect any of those small pcs to my Macair in order to have a keyboard and a screen at hand.
My question: Is there a way to connect the Paspi or any of the other to my laptop in order to program, run Scratch, try to make Legorobots move etc. etc.?
Looking forward to hearing from you, if possible please send an email which makes it easier to find your posts....
Many thanks, kind regards,
Hans

[Robert Savage]

Hello Hans,

The Raspberry Pi is intended to connect (via HDMI cable) directly to your TV or monitor rather than to your laptop. Additionally you would need a USB keyboard and mouse to connect to the Pi to interact with the system. You may want to start over at the Raspberry Pi foundation's website and follow the getting started guide to help you identify all the steps: http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/quick-start-guide/

Ove you have the system booted, you can run Scratch directly on the Pi via the keyboard and mouse.

Thanks, Robert

[yusuf]

Hello Robert

We want to measure distance by using PI4J ultrasonic sensor (ultrasonic distance sensor). I can do that comfortably with "Pulseln" which is used on Ardunio but i need to do that with PI4J. Is there any similar example or function?