56. Computer Science Zero (CS0)

Rooted in the idea that good design skills should be incorporated into everyday things, 8th grade CS0 students are challenged to redesign New York City’s flag. Victoria Martin ’22 designed this flag with multiple versions in 2017, using the PencilCode programming environment.

The pilot of Computer Science Zero was launched in 2014. 8th graders in CS0 use the Engineering Design Cycle to prototype solutions to social issues in their community, learn how algorithms can help computer scientists tackle complicated problems, and work on projects using three of the primary languages of the internet (JavaScript, HTML, and CSS). While CS0 was the first Middle School class to formally introduce programming, it built off of the background laid down by the Middle School Robotics program and several programming clubs. In 2016, the teaching staff expanded to include members of Science, Art, and New Lab, making it a truly interdisciplinary course.

Each year, the faculty has tested out new ideas and iterated on the class, but some of the assignments have stayed consistent since the first year. Here, we show an example of one of our favorite programming assignments. Rooted in the idea that good design should be incorporated into everyday things, the students were challenged to look critically at the New York City flag and propose new designs for it. After researching existing flags and thinking of the different users who needed to be considered, the students sketched their designs, received feedback from each other, and used the PencilCode programming environment to build their proposal and embed it on a website. This is the work of Victoria Martin, a student in Dr. Warren’s 2017 class; Victoria used the same code to submit multiple versions in different color schemes.
—Dr. Sloan Warren, Middle & High School Robotics and Computer Science Teacher