Hi all,
My 8 year old is asking if he can learn how to program.
I’d like to support this, and it seems like it’s not a transient interest as he’s been all over scratch, and using things like minecraft commands for the last year. I have an old (pre 2017) MacBook Air I can set up for this. How do I / what would you advise I set up for him, to a) keep him safe online (he’s 8!) and b) give him the tools he needs in a structured way.
You could get a cheap Android phone or tablet and install MacroDroid or Automate. They allow making simple programs from building blocks. Like “If notification is ckicked display message”. … but there’s the risk this somehow leads to wanting to use the internet/wifi.
Unfortunately Lego Mindstorms have been discontinued AFAIK. It were components to build a robot that could be programmed from a PC. That would have been cool. I think one of the programming softwares was also for Mac. Maybe you can get it second hand?