I'm considering teaching povray to a group of kids-- perhaps a youth group
at my church.  I'm wondering what age you'd think say the top 80% of the
kids would have the capacity to appreciate it.  (Or say an application like
blender using freeware models).

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Greg M. Johnson wrote:
> I'm considering teaching povray to a group of kids-- perhaps a youth group
> at my church.  I'm wondering what age you'd think say the top 80% of the
> kids would have the capacity to appreciate it.  (Or say an application like
> blender using freeware models).

Dunno about age, but certainly after school has started to teach
geometry, including the cordinate system.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
   http://www.zbxt.net
      aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Greg M. Johnson spake:

> I'm considering teaching povray to a group of kids-- perhaps a youth group
> at my church.  I'm wondering what age you'd think say the top 80% of the
> kids would have the capacity to appreciate it.  (Or say an application
> like blender using freeware models).

I started playing with Pov in ninth grade, before we had even done much 
geometry or I knew much about co-ordinate systems - the Pov-Ray docs were
suffiecient, and I managed to figure it out.

I think that any age above, say, 14 or 15 should do it - any teen of
reasonable intelligence should easily be able to figure it out, most
definitely those in the top 80%.

-- 
Stefan Viljoen
Software Support Technician / Programmer
Polar Design Solutions

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My first experiences with scripted rendering was aged 12-13ish. A friend
gave me a copy of PVRay (as it was known then!) when I was 15 or 16. It was
actually the 4th command-line ray tracer I ever used, and was much, much
more advanced than the others - I've not used anything else since! I was
fascinated by what these programs could do, which provided the drive to
learn how to use them. I'd say anybody between those ages with any aptitude
for mathematics would be fine with the bare bones of POV as long as they
were interested in it.

Bill

PS It'd make a great introductory programming language, too...

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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Greg M. Johnson wrote:
> 
>>I'm considering teaching povray to a group of kids-- perhaps a youth group
>>at my church.  I'm wondering what age you'd think say the top 80% of the
>>kids would have the capacity to appreciate it.  (Or say an application like
>>blender using freeware models).
> 
> 
> Dunno about age, but certainly after school has started to teach
> geometry, including the cordinate system.

Actually I learned that from/with/while using povray and was
quite astonished by the right handed coordinate system in
school :-). I think I was about 12-14 then.
Three of six school newspaper covers I made were done with
PoV-Ray. Unfortunately I lost all of them during a several
HD-Crashes over the years without having full backups
(Not affordable to me that time...).

I like the idea very much to teach PoV-Ray.
It gives a very smooth relation between math and images/animations
with which one can impress parents/frineds without the need
to explain thing they're not interested in at all.
It's like a soft entry to math. At least that was it for me.

Regards,
Sebastian

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Greg M. Johnson wrote:
> I'm considering teaching povray to a group of kids-- perhaps a youth group
> at my church.  I'm wondering what age you'd think say the top 80% of the
> kids would have the capacity to appreciate it.  (Or say an application like
> blender using freeware models).

I would say 8th grade or later keeping in mind your 80% bar.

My 8th grade daughter showed a capacity for it.  After I constructed the 
SDL to produce a cylindrical platform with a circle of pillars around 
the edge for her, she was able to figure out how to add more elements 
like capitals and lintels on her own.  But this did not really grab her 
interest.

I introduced my son at maybe 6th grade with similar result.  He made a 
pile of spheres into a snowman to humour me, then got outta Dodge.

Incidently my daughter had fun with SPatch at a very, very young age. 
She would generate rotated shapes and I would render them.

I think the success would be highly dependant on a seductive and highly 
organized presentation.

Two half-formed and probably obvious thoughts:

If there is a strong sense that the raytracer is just illustrating the 
math after the fact, it will not be so appealing.  You would have to 
create a sense that it was dynamically adding insight.  For instance I 
remember back to my school days when they would haul out an oscilloscope 
to show us a sine wave.  Ba-Bump.  But animated film shorts illustrating 
how mechanical cams and the like can trace a sine wave, that worked!

Another hook would be to come up with relatively simple projects that 
create appealing results quickly.  The student can be seduced by showing 
them the result that they could achieve too!  But initially they would 
have to be able get to it quickly.  If you hook them, then they will 
develop the patience for more elaborate stuff later.

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message 
news:43a6edcd$1@news.povray.org...

   Jim, the "quickly" bit hits home with all of us, I'm sure. You're right 
with this.

   When I first started using PoV (3.1g),  I taught my daughter of <then> 
15yo how to make a table with a flat top and four legs, with a chrome sphere 
on top. She was impressed but not amused (*and* bored) at the time taken to 
render it.

    That's kids for you...

   She does now know at age nearly 20, that these things take time...


    ~Steve~

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Greg M. Johnson wrote:

> I'm considering teaching povray to a group of kids-- perhaps a youth group
> at my church.  I'm wondering what age you'd think say the top 80% of the
> kids would have the capacity to appreciate it.  (Or say an application like
> blender using freeware models).

Unless the UI for Blender is highly non-intuitive, Blender will work for 
  a younger audience than the how-good-are-you-at-analytical-geometry 
test known as the POV-Ray SDL.

In either case you may have to give the kids a primer on 3d geometry.

As for when the top 80% has the capacity to appreciate it, I'd say the 
kids who are twenty and up...

Regards,
John

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"Greg M. Johnson" <p t e r a n d o n @ the### [at] startswithYcom>
wrote:
> I'm considering teaching povray to a group of kids-- perhaps a youth group
> at my church.  I'm wondering what age you'd think say the top 80% of the
> kids would have the capacity to appreciate it.  (Or say an application like
> blender using freeware models).

I'd say someone who's about 16 and has a bit of insight in 3D-coordinates
(and some math) might be interested, as long as you can show the amazing
things you cand do by just using the basics. I don't think a knowledge of
advanced mathematics is essential for the use of POV (at least for the
basic stuff), just a little bit of insight in spacial coordinates.

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> "Greg M. Johnson" <p t e r a n d o n @ the### [at] startswithYcom>
> wrote:
> 
>>I'm considering teaching povray to a group of kids-- perhaps a youth group
>>at my church.  I'm wondering what age you'd think say the top 80% of the
>>kids would have the capacity to appreciate it.  (Or say an application like
>>blender using freeware models).


I taught POV-Ray to my daughter when she was about 11 or 12 but we used 
Moray to avoid direct editing of text files.  She enjoyed it but we 
didn't get far into coordinate systems.  A bit older would probably be 
better.

David Buck

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