Begining a Sketch, Perspectives on learning Code

Hi, I hope this post is in the correct place.

I am new to Arduino and Programing. I teach school and run a club for the kids where we build Go-Karts and Boats. I am interested in adding Arduino and its possibilities to the things my students do, thus opening many more doors for them and their projects.

First I have to learn some thnigs, then I will learn more by teaching the kids.

Question: What is the best way to build an understanding of code. I have worked through the "Basics" projects on this site and then went back over them to see what I could do from memory by recreating them. I found myself asking "How do I know that is start with?" I could see what I was suppose to type but could not understrand how I was to know thats what was needed.

Example: When setting an "int" at the begining of a sketch like in the "Fade" example in "Basics", what is the thought process or metric for knowing that is how you start? Is their a way to look at the pieces (code) and the objective at hand and figure out what to do?

Thank you,

James

Did you look at the help links in the permanent threads at the top of the forum? There are some items about program design there.

Hello James!

I would like to reccomend the EASIEST way to learn programming if you want to teach kids with no prior programming experience

I highly encourage you to purchase the mBot by makeblock. Here are a few links to get you started

The best part, is that it is a scratch and arduino mash up!

Happy I can help!

Link: - YouTube

KeepingUpwiththeTimes:
Example: When setting an "int" at the begining of a sketch like in the "Fade" example in "Basics", what is the thought process or metric for knowing that is how you start? Is their a way to look at the pieces (code) and the objective at hand and figure out what to do?

In C and C++ programming you must define the type of a variable before you use it. int tells the compiler that you want to use a 2 byte variable that can hold values between - 32768 and + 32767. There are 16 bits in 2 bytes. The highest bit is reserved for the sign which leaves 15 bits for the number and 215 - 1 = 32767. The -1 is there because computers treat 0 as the first number whereas humans usually treat 1 as the first number.

...R