Goonhub
09-11-2020, 12:54 PM
If you're looking for a version of SS13 or Goonstation that's stripped down to be kid-friendly or one that's catered towards education like how Minecraft does, then I'm afraid we don't have one. Like Carbadox said, you're gonna have to make your own. We've a Goonstation Development Guide for setting up the software and such to start coding with Goonstation.
BYOND was designed from its inception to be relatively easy to pick up, though it kinda lacks some of the amenities of current software for teaching programming. BYOND handles a lot of network-related stuff for handling multiplayer for you, so you can just concern yourself with content. People like to mock its programming langauge, DM, but it's all in earnest. DM for example just beeps out a sad error message when it can't compile; for something like C++, you might have crashes. I personally attest I haven't actually read any of BYOND's tutorials for DM and only read a few entries in its reference book, but I can still read the code with not much training besides a basic programming course in school.
I suppose SS13's alright for STEM. None of the systems mentioned are really realistic, but I think that's fine. It might not teach them real chemistry or whatever, but it can get them excited about it and allow them to express themselves through playing with those systems. I think at the kids' age, it's more important to inspire passion for learning about something than teaching it, plus there's the pragmatic aspect in that it'll help them out when they have to confront the complicating factors SS13 handwaves.
BYOND was designed from its inception to be relatively easy to pick up, though it kinda lacks some of the amenities of current software for teaching programming. BYOND handles a lot of network-related stuff for handling multiplayer for you, so you can just concern yourself with content. People like to mock its programming langauge, DM, but it's all in earnest. DM for example just beeps out a sad error message when it can't compile; for something like C++, you might have crashes. I personally attest I haven't actually read any of BYOND's tutorials for DM and only read a few entries in its reference book, but I can still read the code with not much training besides a basic programming course in school.
I suppose SS13's alright for STEM. None of the systems mentioned are really realistic, but I think that's fine. It might not teach them real chemistry or whatever, but it can get them excited about it and allow them to express themselves through playing with those systems. I think at the kids' age, it's more important to inspire passion for learning about something than teaching it, plus there's the pragmatic aspect in that it'll help them out when they have to confront the complicating factors SS13 handwaves.