Week 1: Fundamentals Part I
Welcome to week 1 of the course!
Introduction
Before we get stuck into the programming I thought it would be a good idea for me to introduce both myself and the course. My name is Kyle Fogarty and this year I enter the final year of my MMath&Phys degree. Last year I launched the Future Skills Programme, a series of events that allowed residents to engage with allumni and learn vital skills that would boost their cv and allow them to get ready for the world of work. This course is a new addition to the programme for 2020.
Now let me introduce the course and what I hope to achieve by the end of it. This is an introductory course to the Python 3 programming language, however, it is not my intension to cover all the basic features of Python. Instead I will place an ephasis on the completion of a project; I believe when it comes to programming the only real way to learn and improve is by lots and lots of practice. That being said, we will spend the first three weeks discussing the fundamentals nessassery to complete the project in week 4 to 6. There will also be coding challenges in the first three weeks to complete to ensure you really get to grips with the concepts. I estimate that each week of the course should take between 30 to 60 minuites to complete, although spending more time doing extra practice is encouraged. I have written a set of course notes that you will be able to download each week, I will also link to great resources on the web that cover the weeks topics. Simply move through the content and then try the practice problems and challenges, if you get stuck go back over the content or head over to the dedicated Facebook group .
To give you a flavour of what you will be able to acheive by the end of the course below is a screen recording of the Pong game we will be making in the last three weeks, pretty cool right! The fundamentals are very important, I have tried my best to keep them interesting, but in the inevitable case that some bordem creeps in, remember it is vital you get to grips with that material in order to understand what is happening in the later weeks.
One last thing before we start the course; below is a link to a google form, if you would like to join the email list and get notified
when new content is added to the course then make sure to join.
Week 1: Lecture
You can download this weeks notes using the buttom below.
Week 1 : Course NotesIf you would like to find out more information about the topics discussed in this weeks lecture I have linked to some excellent resources below, I found many of these useful when I was preparing these lectures. Of course if you find any other good resources feel free to share them on the Facebook group .