By Kori Stack. January 25, 2021
Technical descriptive writing is an important skill for anyone with an interest in tech-related business, engineering, and science. In the example of coding a computer, it involves the ability to describe to the computer exactly what you want to happen. Whatever is input will be output.
Exactly Follow Their Instructions
The phrase "garbage-in, garbage-out" definitely applies!
We recently practiced this skill with an exercise of "How to Make Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich." Our young heroes wrote directions for making a PB &J and we decided to test how good their directions were by exactly following their instructions.
It was really fun!
Give It A Try, It's Really Fun
Here is a link to a description of this exercise if you want to try it at home (it will likely take a couple tries to come up with a 'normal' looking sandwich): http://static.zerorobotics.mit.edu/docs/team-activities/ProgrammingPeanutButterAndJelly.pdf
Here are our first sandwiches. Their 2nd drafts were much better than the 1st.
