Presumably aimed at children, NHK World’s Texico program teaches the main ideas about programming without actually using a computer. Instead, it uses items like a toy train, playing cards, and other gadgets to teach concepts such as analysis, combination, simulation, abstraction, and more.
There are ten episodes in English and French. Some of them are more about critical thinking, which, admittedly, is important for solving problems in general with or without a computer. For example, a “magic” trick relies on the observation that tearing a sheet of paper into nine rectangular pieces will mean each piece has at least one perfectly straight edge except for the center piece.
The videos are short and light-hearted. We’d like to see a set of companion videos or posts that relate the lessons to some actual programming task. Of course, you could produce that yourself and host it on a platform like Hackaday.io or YouTube.
The episodes show programming algorithms in strange places. For example, in one episode, mail sorting is the algorithm segment. In another, it is how they pack fireworks.
If you try these with a kid, let us know how it goes. If you figure out why it is called Texico (テキシコ), let us know that, too. We’ve done our own computerless robot training. If you want to stick with hardware, there’s always the egg drop.