Computer Science
Books
Basic Computer Games Paperback
by David H. Ahl (1980)
£12ish, used
This book is out of print now but you can find 2nd hand copies on Amazon. But why should you, in the 21st century, bother with a book that was written in 1980? Because back then, we didn’t have the internet or even hard disks, and so all the computer games we played had to be typed in as source code from the pages of magazines. This book has the code for 101 “classic” games written in BASIC. Most of the games are fairly rubbish, but they are also quite short and converting one of these from BASIC to Python is a great way to improve your coding skills. There is a huge retro gaming community out there waiting for you to explore.
8-bit classics
https://usborne.com/gb/books/computer-and-coding-books
Another collection of 80s games in BASIC, except these are free. The books were absolute classics back in the day (I owned several of them) and the PDFs are now free to download. These games are still very primitive - no graphics or sound - but porting them to python is an elite level flex.
Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python
by Al Sweigart
If you don’t want the extra challenge of porting games from BASIC, try this. The games are still fairly rubbish, but this book begins with “guess the number” and builds up steadily to simple graphics using pygame. If you aren’t a confident coder or you can’t think of a project to improve your skills, this is a great book to code along with. All the concepts here will be useful in class, but it will also help you to write programs that you want.
Microserfs
by Douglas Coupland
£10
A novel about working as a software developer. This was published in 2008 and really gets under the skin of a young programmer who starts in a cubicle working for a software giant and breaks away to co-found a start-up games company.
The Cuckoo’s Egg
by Cliff Stohl
£15
Cliff was a young tech working at a computer lab in the 80s when he accidentally stumbled across evidence that someone was trying to hack into their computers. This is a true crime computer detective story that eventually ended up involving spy agencies around the world. A great way to learn about what hackers really do.
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
£10
This is just a really fun novel, written in 2011 and set in a future dystopia of high-tech Ubereats delivery drivers that jump in and out of virtual reality. Snow Crash is the name of a computer virus that also somehow infects the mind of the person using the computer. But who is behind it and can they be stopped?
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
by Charles Petzold
£15
You already understand basically what a computer is, right? But if a zombie apocalypse destroyed all existing electronics, could you recreate even the most simple computer? Yes, provided you have this book. It explains how to start with a switch and build from that into logic gates, simple circuits and eventually a computer. Great for improving your redstone circuits in Minecraft, and a cool way to explore the absolute bedrock of computer science.
YouTube
AI Explained
https://www.youtube.com/@ai-explained-
The latest developments with chatGPT and other Large Language Models
Ben Eater
https://www.youtube.com/@BenEater
How to build a computer from scratch! No really!
Boston Dynamics
https://www.youtube.com/@BostonDynamics
Computerphile
https://www.youtube.com/@Computerphile
Craig 'n' Dave
https://www.youtube.com/@craigndave
GCSE level explanations
Creel
https://www.youtube.com/@WhatsACreel
In-depth explanations for why some algorithms are more efficient.
James Bruton
https://www.youtube.com/@jamesbruton
James has been building walking 3D-printed robots for over ten years and he is really good at it now.
JavaTutorials101
https://www.youtube.com/@JavaTutorials101
Learn how to do 3D graphics in Java
mCoding
https://www.youtube.com/@mCoding
Excellent explanations of the more advanced tricks you can do in Python. All of this is well beyond what you need for GCSE, but we shoot for the stars so we can hit the Moon!
SimonDev
https://www.youtube.com/@simondev758
Simon is an ex-Google employee and an ex game dev. He makes interesting videos with cool coding tips.
Socratica
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi01XoE8jYohWFPpC17Z-wWhPOSuh8Er-
Great tutorial videos for Python, beginning with "Hello World" and working up.
Websites
Code Combat
A dungeon crawler game with fun and easy programming puzzles. You can play the first few levels online for free.
Codewars
An online platform that helps you learn, train, and improve your coding skills by solving programming tasks of many types and difficulty levels. You choose how you would like to learn. Do you want to take on increasingly difficult challenges? Maybe you prefer training through repetition and by improving your solutions. After solving a task, compare your answer with other users and learn from them or help less experienced users by answering their questions. https://www.codewars.com/
Museums
Bletchley Park
https://bletchleypark.org.uk/
Discover the incredible achievements of Britain's World War Two Codebreakers, in the place where it happened. We are planning a trip for Y10 and 11 in the Autumn.
Centre for Computing History
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/
Based in Cambridge, this hosts hands-on exhibitions, educational workshops and a wide range of activities and events. Most importantly, it makes the history of computing relevant and fun for all ages!
Science Museum
https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/thinking-machines-stories-history-computing
In the short history of computers as we know them, these world-changing machines have shrunk dramatically. Meanwhile their processing power only continues to increase, so that most of us now have a powerful computer in our pocket. How did we get here, and what were the key moments that shaped our computerised world?
The National Museum of Computing
https://www.tnmoc.org/
Follow the development of computing: from the Turing-Welchman Bombe and Colossus of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, to the rise of personal computing and the rise of mobile computing and the internet. Recognised as one of England’s top 100 ‘irreplaceable places’