Viper

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  Viper Demo

Inspiration

I was inspired to create viper because I noticed that students like me are bored at home and wanted to inspire other students to get started with programming. Viper is a transitional language with simple functions that allows students to learn how to use typed commands rather than block functions.

What it does

Viper includes functions for simple I/O, arithmetic, and illustrative functions with turtle visuals.

How I built it

Viper was built using the Visual Studio Code IDE and written as functions in Python.

Challenges I ran into

One challenge that I ran into is using turtle to draw a star with n points. This presented a challenge because I wanted to make it easy for kids to run this function, but it was really advanced and required lots of geometry and math. I only ended up including a function that drew an odd-n pointed star, but I am looking to add functionality for an even n-value soon.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

One thing that I am proud of is the final product's ability to take what may seem ominous (a written programming language) to people transitioning from block languages and turn it into an interactive and fun way to get started with Python. I hope this product can be impactful to students in my community and in others.

What I learned

During this hackathon, I learned more about how to personalize a programming language by talking to my sister, who doesn't know programming, and learning more about what works for students with less experience. This has really been an eye-opener in programming for young kids.

What's next for Viper

As for the future of viper, I want to add more graphical functions that kids can play around with. Another thing that I want to do is allow them to access the terminal from a webpage, which may be a little easier on the custom feedback side, so that I could have specific error messages that are more applicable to the program.

Built With

• python
• turtle