Python in Education

10  |  Chapter 2: A Pythonic Case Study: Raspberry Pi

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Figure 2-2. Multi-colored fractal trees created in Minecraft using

Python running on a Raspberry Pi

The image on the front cover of this report was also taken at

PyconUK. Notice the lack of adult supervision; this is a group of

kids between the ages of 6 and 9 autonomously working out how to

program Minecraft with Python. These are tomorrow’s program‐

mers inspired into programming 

today

.

Another interesting side effect of having the Raspberry Pi at

PyconUK was how such educational activities motivated professio‐

nal software developers. A group of Python developers took the

library provided by Mojang and started to 

add features and update it

to the latest version of Python

, making the learning curve for the

kids shallower and smoother.

As Ben from the Raspberry Pi education team pointed out, teachers

don’t necessarily have the skills or time to write the Python libraries

they need to create engaging lessons for their students. Yet the

Python community steps up and makes stuff happen so that their

work can be repurposed (sometimes unintentionally) for use in the

classroom.

Such crossover between programming and education, facilitated by

the popularity of the Raspberry Pi device in both realms, has led to

many positive, mutually beneficial outcomes. Teachers now make

up a significant minority of attendees at PyconUK, kids attend

Python conferences all over the world, Python developers run code

workshops (for example, the London Python Code Dojo contrib‐